


Be Yourself to Control Again

by asexualizing (Specialcookies)



Series: the lights we chase [1]
Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Asexuality, Character Death Mentions, Gen, Mental Health Hospital, Mental Health Issues, Mental Ilness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychotherapy, Suicide mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-02-28 16:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2738837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Specialcookies/pseuds/asexualizing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kieren helps her find a therapist – outside of Roarton, because they’ve kind of had enough, the both of them, with the sort of help this community can provide.</p>
<p>But there’s a limit to what Jem can ask from Kieren, a limit to what she wants to ask from Kieren. This is on her, for her, about her, hers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> o-kay. so. this fic...this fic is probably my one work i'm most proud of, at the moment. this is all about jem walker. there's kieren, and there's simon, and there's some kieren/simon. there are her parents, and other characters, and people. but it is all about jem walker. because jem walker deserves a lot, and i want to give her a lot. it is a fic about platonic relationships more than it is about romantic ones.
> 
> there are references to fandom, and jokes, but this is a fic about mental health. if you may find mental illness potentially triggering, but want to read this fic: 1. i'm trying to deal with these issues as best as i can, and doing as much research as necessary for that. i hope i did that well. 2. you're welcome to ask me more about the fic and your specific triggers, to see if we can work our way around them, or if they will be present in the fic at all. 3. this is essentially a getting better fic. there is a very clear note of hope in it. it does evolve around the work that getting better demands, but it is not a fic of despair.
> 
> now, for some messages from our sponsors:
> 
> [briefly-be](http://briefly-be.tumblr.com/) is the person i owe everything to. i do not know what i'd do, or what this fic would look like, without her. i love you so so much and thank you a lot and for so many things. briefly-be is also the person who initially wrote a fic, which is currently under proccess to be posted soon, that created the verse this fic takes place in. these fics are related like our souls are related, so if you read this fic, please read hers as well in due time.
> 
> i owe a huge thank you to [allie](http://freddiebaxxter.tumblr.com/), who's betaing and britpicking the fic. i would be lost without my beta. x
> 
> please please if you read this leave me a word, i'm working really hard on this piece of work and i would appriciate this. i have a [tumblr](http://asexualizing.tumblr.com/) in case you want to so that there or have any questions.
> 
> now, go forth and have fun. hopefully.

She thinks, anger is not an answer, it’s a weapon.

Weapons, she learned at training, is a thing you should be careful with.

She thinks, guilt is paralyzing.

**Paralyze** [ **par** - _uh_ -lahyz]  
_v. to bring to a condition of helpless stoppage, inactivity, or inability to act._

**PART I**

Kieren helps her find a therapist – outside of Roarton, because they’ve kind of had enough, the both of them, with the sort of help this community can provide – which she is grateful for, because Kieren looks so tired sometimes, like having dark circles around his eyes is not a permanent fashion these days, and she told him she can do the searching herself, but he rubbed her back comfortably and said he’d promised, didn’t he?

They spend their quality brother-sister time sitting cramped together in front of their shite computer, Jem with her head on Kieren’s shoulder and the free hand that isn’t operating the mouse pinching his waist every time he makes a dumb-ass comment about something, making him laugh and not squirm.

“Mum!” Jem calls when the internet crashes for the bazillionth time, forcing them yet again to go back in their history and find the relevant pages to bookmark (needless to say, finding a therapist that might not insist that Jem should be proud is incredibly difficult, nearly impossible. But they do get a good laugh out of it, sometimes. People are ridiculous, honestly, they are). “Kier wants a new computer!”

Kieren bumps his shoulder hard into her, which is unfair, because she’s _fragile_ compared to him. She sticks her tongue out at him. “I said nothing to incite this!” he yells. Kieren yelling always sounds weird and cracked, like he never learned how to use his lungs but it’s not going to stop him, especially not when his lungs are not functioning at all. “But she is right!” he adds, probably just to make their mother exasperated. And probably because their computer is _seriously shite_.

“Yeah, you know, if he can’t meet the world face to face, the least you can do is let him see it through Google Maps!” 

It’s a moment before she remembers this is nothing to joke about, and looks at Kieren, bit worried, bit apologetic. But Kieren still smiles the smile that makes him look more alive than ever, and he laughs a tad sarcastic laugh, and when mum doesn’t answer, probably thinking that if she’ll ignore them they’ll stop, which is always a bad habit with them both but she’d never let go of it, she shouts, “Yeah, don’t be like them! Fight back!”

“Will no one in this house let me make dinner in peace?!” their mother finally replies, and simultaneously their faces go into mocking mode, and they both go into a fit of giggles.

“I’m sorry,” Jem still says when they’re back to surfing the web.

“No, don’t be. That felt good.” Kieren leans closer. “Click on that one.” He points at a link.

The website has a lot of small pictures of people, and a lot of written information to sift through.

“That’s a psych ward, Kier,” she says dismissively, defensively, maybe.

“Shut up. Let’s see if they do sessions.”

***

_There’s a dream. She’s not sure what its point is. She’s not sure what it is about. She’s not even sure which bodies are in it, and which are in the others. But there is a dream._

_It’s all black and white._

_And she wakes up from it only to find out that it wasn’t a dream only to wake up again to find out that it was and then it wasn’t but she’s not sure she’s never sure what’s going on but there is a dream._

_She doesn’t have a voice._

_There are dreams of gore and horror and there are dreams of bloodless life and graves graves graves but there is a dream._

_Nothing surrounds her._

_She doesn’t know where to go._

_She can’t hear a thing._

_And all the colourless people are going about with their things._

_There is a dream and she doesn’t think that anybody is dead but she still doesn’t know what to do and what she is and where she stands but there is still a dream._

_She is in uniform._

_It is uncomfortable._

_She raises her hand to find a barrette at her head._

_It fits, but then it doesn’t._

_And there is always a dream, and it is never good, and she is always asleep, dreaming a dream._

***

“How are we gonna get the money, Kier?” She suddenly feels extremely unsettled. They haven’t thought about that, Kieren’s endless optimism about getting better too distracting for her to bother.

“Leave it to me,” Kieren replies, with nothing else to further explain how they’re gonna solve this problem. He’s such…a big brother sometimes.

“Okay, then how are _you_ gonna get the money?”

Kieren shrugs. Then Jem’s eyes widen.

“ _No!_ Absolutely not! That is _your_ money Kieren. You need it. You need to – “

“Hey, hey, calm down. I’m not gonna use that. It won’t be enough anyway.”

She pierces him with a glare until she’s sure he’s talking the truth, then winds down. And then lower then down when she remembers there is still the actual problem they were talking about. “This is useless,” she slumps on her bed. “We should just find an NHS one.”

Kieren stays standing at her doorway. He still thinks her room is too dark. She kind of wants to point out that that’s his fault, making her a metal-head, punk, whatnot.

“And how do you think that’s gonna go?”

“I don’t know. At least it’ll go.”

She can practically hear Kieren’s eyes rolling, doesn’t need to look to know that’s his reaction (to practically anything. It’s like a Pavlovian response of him). For a moment she thinks she actually does and maybe his body cracks now and that’s a thing.

“Right then, whiney.” 

She gets back up only to glare at him again. “That’s a serious concern.”

“That we will figure out the moment you’d agree to check out some of the people we found.”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

It’s not that she doesn’t want to it’s that they all seem…she doesn’t know what they seem like and it bothers her.

Kieren rolls his eyes. “I’m going to Simon’s,” he announces, shoving himself away from the doorframe. “Well, to meet Simon at a place, at least.”

“Cheerio,” she says, waving shortly then crawling on her bed in search for her book. Kieren knocks obnoxiously on her door.

“What?” She rolls to look at him.  
He points a finger at her. “You need to try.”

“I know.”

“Seriously.”

“I know.”

“Alright.”

“Go bug your boyfriend.”

***

Simon spends a lot of time at their place. Kieren spends a lot of time with Simon. She can’t say that she’s jealous, because that wouldn’t be fair – people grow up, people have their own lives, but it’s also not fair that she’s stuck with mum and dad only, at home most of the time because getting out gets too much like school after Kieren’s death, and school after Kieren’s undeath, and…school, generally.

It makes her miss Lisa. Well, technically, she misses Lisa not only because of that. But it’s been awhile since she felt it that strongly. Lisa used to hold her hand under the blanket when Jem spent days in bed. Her hands were nice, soft. Not like Gary’s hands at all. Lisa used to – she doesn’t want to think about that. She can’t feel guilty for killing zombies while feeling guilty for not killing zombies. It doesn’t work. And that closure didn’t work. And nothing works. And – 

She doesn’t hate Simon, alright, she really doesn’t. She makes sure to taunt him, ‘cause that’s what sisters do, and…well.

Sometimes Simon walks in, face unmasked, eyes too pale, posture stiff, and Jem's breath catches in her throat and she feels as if the air was sucked from around her, creating a little bubble of nothing, and she clasps the hem of her shirt in her palm until her nails dig into her skin and the fabric almost tears and it is looser afterwards than it was before.

Her pajamas shirts are almost exclusively stretched out of her size now, but that’s okay, she only sleeps in them, yeah?

She needs to think hard, really hard, about how Simon might be bonkers and a complete idiot, about how he might resent her, but not enough, and he wouldn't hurt her, and Kieren wouldn't let him, anyway, and he’s probably the kind of guy to play _Wonderwall_ on his guitar.

But she’s actually kind of okay with him. He’s just weird, different weird than Kieren, but that’s not necessarily bad. And Kieren argues with him, and…not with him, but looking back and putting things in order (which she does a lot now, timelines help, timelines are grounding), you can see it is greatly thanks to Simon, and that’s nice, that Kieren has someone that makes him stand for himself and not only for others. It’s important.

Looking at Kieren is a completely different story.

Looking at Kieren is like listening to Gerard Way singing _take my fucking hand and never be afraid again_.

***

So she digs up the old mix CD.

She haven't listened to it since after Kieren's suicide, when on a whim she stuffed it in the stereo and kicked the volume up, only to find out that it had the exact opposite effect than the one it had back when Kieren made it. She wanted to burn it, but couldn't actually bring herself to do that, so she just stacked it away in the mess that's the box under her bed and haven't dug it up since then.

The problem was that Kieren only taught her how to use anger as a tool, a vessel for a feeling of hopelessness, of fear, of anxiousness. He only taught her how to scream to feel alive, how to scream to scrap at shame until it stopped bothering you. He didn't teach her what to do when there is no use to your anger, when your anger is worthless, when your anger won't bring your dead brother back to life.

Back then, she thought: _he'd probably tell me my anger is valid_ , and: _what help is that_ , and: _of course my anger is valid, you fucking offed yourself_.

She thought he'd say she shouldn't be afraid to feel it, but really, but really, he didn’t know what she will feel when she'll stop being angry, if when _she_ wanted to disappear Kieren made her a mix CD, but his version of it for himself was to bleed himself dry, and Jem didn't even know.

She was afraid of being angry because anger is a mask, a tool, and when you cannot channel anything through it, when it doesn't work, then what happens? How do you feel when the anger fades away? What is it hiding from you?

It wasn’t power anymore, it was being completely powerless.

She only wanted to have that power again.

_Stand up fucking tall_  
Don’t let them see your back  
Take my fucking hand  
And never be afraid again 

***

“Jemima,” her dad says out of nowhere, falling on the couch next to her with a thud and makes her slide a bit lower with how he sinks the cushions.

“Father,” She replies without looking up from the book she’s currently reading. She doesn’t really know what it’s about. Robots, maybe. Something futuristic. She thinks it’s called cyber-punk.

“I thought we’d go eat some fish and chips. Just you and me.”

Kieren is with Simon, mum is still working, and her dad is lonely.

She looks up.

He smiles hopefully.

“I’m not hungry. And Simon’s coming to dinner so mum would give me hell for not attending.”

He still smiles hopefully, though it flickers. “Thought it’d you good, getting out for a bit. Fresh air and stuff.”

_Fresh air is overrated_ , she thinks, then feels a bit nauseous responding so bitterly to her dad.

She is bored. And it is nice of him, coming like that to her. Maybe she loves him just a little bit sometimes. 

She sighs, and shuts the book, making her father’s smile grow wider. “Alright,” she sits up swiftly, legs folded. “Suppose I can just pretend to eat along with Kier.”

Her father is practically exuberant with her at the moment, probably tuned our after ‘alright’ judging by the lack of comment on the last part. He stands up so quickly and tries to hide the fact he forgot what to do next. It’s kind of…it’s good, it’s her father, that’s good.

“Fetch me my coat, I’m gonna put on some shoes,” she frees him from his misery.

“Yes, sir,” her father jokes.

It stings only a little bit.

As they go out of the door, her father looks a bit fainted, like he woke up from a daydream suddenly. “Jem,” he says carefully.

“Yes, dad?”

“Don’t pretend to eat along with Kieren.”

Jem actually laughs.

“I won’t dad, don’t worry.”

And they’re back on track.

***

Amy startled her, when she first appeared. She was loud, and not even a little bit dead, not in a term that matches Jem’s definition of dead. And Jem was jealous, at first. Because her own heart was beating, yet she wasn’t nearly as alive as Amy was.  
And it got her thinking.

Kieren used to frighten her because no matter how much blood was pumping through his veins he was still the perfect definition of dead. And then he _was_ dead. And then he wasn’t.

But he was always, _always_ her brother.

It didn’t make any sense for Amy to die. It didn’t make any sense for Amy to acknowledge her in her will.

Yet here they are, with Jem walking out of her home with Amy’s plastic flowers in her hair.

***

Jem’s Doc Martens splash water on her sweats as she kicks puddles. (Going out in her comfy clothes is less shameful than being Jem Walker right now, so why bother). She’d owned them since she’d been fifteen, first thing she’d bought with her own money after working a summer job at a her school, helping all the teachers manage the little ones whose parents couldn’t keep an eye on. They’re bruised and battered and perfect. She likes looking at them folding around her feet as she moves.

Her father doesn’t ask why she keeps her head stuck down low, looking at the ground. She could say it’s the wind, but she doesn’t have to lie since her father is probably afraid to ask.

“So what are you up for?” Her father asks.

“Thought you said fish and chips.” Another puddle, sweats a little more drenched.

“Yeah, as a general…suggestion for going out. We can do anything you want. Eat, not eat. Though you know, I think you should eat, after sitting all day long reading, must be starving to do that. Lots of action, eh?”

She can see him having that I’m-so-clever expression on his face even without looking. She cackles to herself.

“’S alright dad, we can do fish and chips.”

“Great.” His excitement nearly makes her jump. There’s something jittery about it, though, unstable.

A thought hits her.

“Hey, dad,” She raises her head, grabs at his elbow after he doesn’t stop walking. He looks at her, a bit confused, a bit anticipatory. She looks straight at him. “I’m alright, yeah?”

He doesn’t respond.

“Really.” She insists.

He takes a deep breath, still says nothing. Jem doesn’t lower her eyes. Then, finally: “I know.” It’s so weak compared to what was before.

Jem cracks a smile.

***

Kieren didn't talk about Rick that much. No, she means, he talked about him all the damn time, except not about...that. To the extent that she doesn't even know what 'that' means, exactly. It's just a vague picture of Rick kissing Vicky and Bill Macy's knife at the back of Rick's head when she thinks about it, and then she thinks about Rick's panic in that voice mail he left for Kieren, and she feels Rick Macy's arm around her shoulders, and she throws up.

She actually liked Rick; he made Kieren draw, and he made funny jokes, and he had that big bright smile that as a little child you always find comforting. He let her come along with him and Kieren sometimes, when they weren’t too busy, or when things weren’t too bad, and he bought her cotton candy and toffee apples at the carnival, and later her first leather jacket from a hand-me-down shop.

Hating Rick wasn’t her decision to make, anyway.

Just like it wasn’t Bill Macy’s decision to hate Kieren. But that doesn’t stop most people, does it? Everything is their decision.

Anger can be all consuming. She knows, she’s been there, she doesn’t want to go back.

***

_There are white crosses around her, and the sound of marching feet and drums, and Gary is wrapping his hands around her, teaching her how to hold a gun, which doesn’t make any sense, because she thinks she knows the whole mechanism already._

_There are a whole bunch of people there, some are familiar – like kids from school, and her brother’s pale gang, she forgets their name – and some are not._

_Gary’s holding her hands firmly in place, and Jem asks, “Is there a queue waiting for me to shoot at them?”_

_She turns her head to Gary, and Gary’s smile seems to her like a snicker, and her own face feels like a smug grin._

_“Go on babe,” Gary says._

_Jem always wakes up sweating before the bullet hits its target._

***

Jem makes a habit of looking in the mirror before any dinner with Simon. It’s not a ritual, she doesn’t have any words to say to herself, she just stands there and stares at her image. Pale, dark hair, eyes wide, circles of purplish grey around them that are so different from Kieren’s yet so similar, like their connection as siblings is noted in them.

Simon doesn’t hate her the same way that he hates Gary, maybe because Kieren loves her, and maybe because she’s not as bad as Gary, she doesn’t know. But he does judge her, you can see it on him, and she’d seen enough of Simon to know that he does even if it wasn’t showing.

She can’t blame him.

She stands in front of the mirror and stares and she’s not sure what it gives her except knowing how she looks, remembering there is no actual blood on her like she sometimes thinks there is, knowing she hadn’t changed that much, appearance wise, since the last time she looked, and the once before that, and a year ago, and two years ago.

(She had changed. Her hair is no longer a screaming colour and her veins are showing under some parts of her skin and she seems feebler, but she hasn’t changed into something unrecognizable, scary.)

Then she can go and make dinners less awkward all by herself. Honestly, the burden. You’d think the new kid would make _some_ effort not to be that strange, unreachable man that brings their parents to silence and weird convo topics. 

And Kieren, god bless him, is useless.

The moment her dad starts talking about The Matrix she knows they are all doomed.

She goes back to the mirror afterwards.

_Needlework the way, never you betray_  
Life of death becoming clearer  
Pain monopoly, ritual misery  
Chop your breakfast on a mirror  
James Hetfield sings in her headphones. 

***

The first therapist she decides to try is the closest one there is to Roarton. It’s a twenty minutes bus drive from a station that is a ten minute walk from home, and then another ten minutes walk to the place. It’s a shithole just like Roarton is, kind of, definitely can’t be as bad as a town that know the insides outs of all of the people living there because they honestly believe it’s their damn business, but then only talk about it privately out of respect. Although, she supposes every town resident thinks just the same about their own home. It’s the one thing that literally every single town shares in common. That, and nothing to do except for that one bar. Yeah, that bar, you know the one.

The meeting is priced higher than the regular ones since it’s the first meeting, which is a logic that baffles Jem, but it seems to be a rule of thumb in the psychological community. She gets the money from the scraps and pieces she got left of the savings from summer jobs and prizes on Rabids, and maybe it’s sort of a penance, using it on that. She’s glad to be rid of it, anyway.

She goes when mum and dad are at work, so they don’t need to know about that, ‘cause she doesn’t think she’s ready to tell them just yet. There’ll be tons of questions that she doesn’t want to talk about with them. Kieren leaves her an encouragement note with a thumb print in bright red paint on it, and Jem carries it in her pocket on her way.

There’s a crisp breeze when she gets on the bus, and the windows rattle through the whole ride so she can’t lean her head against them, and that makes her irritated, and a women is giving her bad looks when she puts her feet on the chair, and her chest feels like it’s going to burst with nothing against it to hold it in place.

Her thumb slips on her iPod and she passes Death Angel so many times she just gives up on it and puts Shuffle on. It chooses the Top 10 Pop Songs That Jem Needs In Her Life playlist that Lisa once made her.

Great, fantastic, yeah, exactly what she needs, great.

Jem rolls her eyes.

Then _Teenage Dirtbag_ starts playing.

(Needless to say, with the kind of road that gotten her there, that the meeting was a complete waste of time. The therapist was blunt, like he wanted to get the most out of their meeting when all Jem wanted was to understand what she’s doing there, maybe, hopefully. And Jem hates answering to questions, especially when she doesn’t get them. She spent the ride back trying not to cry, and mostly succeeding. Anyway.)

***

She uses her dad’s shaving machine to shave an underside on the left side of her head. 

She uses tutorials on Youtube as a guide and it comes out not brilliant, but good, and she’s pleased with herself. She spends half an hour running her hand over it, then pins the hair she left long to the right side of her scalp, and goes out of the bathroom with a plastic bag full of dark dark hair.

Kieren and Simon are currently at the living room, not arguing for a change, and Jem smiles at them as she passes to the kitchen to bin the bag.

Simon’s eyebrows are raised. Kieren’s thumbs are up.

As she walks into the kitchen, where her mum and dad stand, her mum’s mouth gapes slightly open. She smiles warmly at her.

“Jem,” her dad says, like he’s surprised to see her there and nothing else. “I – It’s – It’s, um, new.” He stutters. He’s also nodding.

Jem tilts her head to the side, like her hair didn’t get enough of an exposure. “You like?”

“Suits you,” her mum finally says.

She means it.

***

“So how did the meeting go?” Kieren asks her when they bump into each other, switching turns at the bathroom.

“Bad.” Jem says pointedly.

“Oh.” Kieren is kind of dumb sometimes. She knows he’ll regain himself in a moment and start babbling about their other plans but she’s really not in the mood.

“Night,” she tells him, kisses his cheek.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he calls after her as she walks to her room.

“Tired,” she calls back, but that’s a lie.

***

Jem has a calendar on her wall. It seems out of place since it’s cheap and ugly and bright, nothing like the design of her room, but she keeps it there to keep her head wrapped around the days of the week, and the days of the month, and the days of the year. It started when she skipped school so many times that she weren’t sure where she stood already. It got red X marks on each day that passes, and nothing else. No events, no birthdays – just the days of the week and the month and the year.

When she stands in front of it now she realizes she missed marking a few days. And then, just like she knew a moment ago which day and date it was, she now doesn’t. She feels her heart banging and something crawling up her throat.

Her watch can only tell the time. She spends five minutes staring at it.

Then she spends another five.

Her legs are tingly.

She scratches each leg with the other one but it doesn’t help.

She looks up at the calendar again.

_Look_ , she thinks, _it can be either of these blank days, but all the other ones have marks on them._

Her fingers run across the marked days. She flicks through all the past months just to see it’s all alright. When it is, she goes to her phone, presses a random key and watches the screen light up. It has the date and day.

And just like she panicked before, she’s not even sure what she panicked about now.

***

The second and third therapists are just a combination of bad phrasing and frustration.

She gives up on them both.

 

***

The fourth therapist is nicer, and Jem spots an anti-Victus pamphlet at her secretary’s table, which in backing on a completely on-paper level, but it’s better than no backing at all. She also notices a copy of David Bowie’s biography on the shelves in her office (do you even call that an office? She doesn’t think offices look like this room).

So by the time they say the first words Jem is pretty pumped up.

“Jem, is it?” the therapist starts.

“Jemima, actually. But I don’t like Jemima, it sounds gran-ish and like I’m knitting horrible Christmas jumpers for my kids, so. Yeah, Jem, it is.” She speaks really fast. She’s not sure when it comes from, even.

“That’s a rather vivid description,” the therapist say with the edges of her mouth quirked up. It’s not the bad kind of smile, so Jem keeps on talking, and they talk about absolutely nothing, and Jem thinks that it’s…it’s nicer than talking about stuff, actually. She hasn’t done that in awhile.

It’s just that suddenly she get the feeling that some bad vibe was going around there. Some uneasiness, something uncomfortable directed at her. And as she suddenly shuts down she feels it growing with every minute that pass until she’s looking down at her watch counting to the end of the session and nothing could bring her out of her head.

So later, when she’ll think about what made her back away, she’ll think it wasn’t the therapist fault. She’s imagining things. It was completely her fault but no, she won’t call again, no, she doesn’t know why, God, Kieren, I really don’t!

***

She wakes up with sheets that need changing and a pajama that desperately needs washing.

She drops it all on the floor on the pile of dirty clothes. Her mum says that her room is like a map-less land. Jem doesn’t get it. She finds her way just fine.

When she goes down, Kieren is going out. He looks at her, then looks down, and Jem sighs and walks to him.

“I’m sorry,” she declares.

Kieren is still looking down, but he has his hands in his pockets now. “I’ve had worse from you.”

“Yeah, I know, please…please just take my apology. Take it away from me.”

He looks up. “I will. But you know I’m just doing what you asked me to, right?”

“I know. I’m grateful. But I think I need a break. And I’m out of money anyway, so we need to figure this out again. And, you know – just a little longer before the next try.”

Kieren nods. He doesn’t look okay though.

They say goodbye.

It’s not a good day.

***

Lisa used to tell her: “The fact you’re a psycho doesn’t mean that I don’t love you.”

Jem used to tell her: “Same.”

They used to sit next to each other in the cafeteria and steal food from each other’s trays.

She had a mate.

She had a mate that didn’t demand her to be anything in particular, just demanded her to be.

And then she didn’t.

Then she had Charlotte, when she could have had Henry.

Gary…Gary was her playing a joke on herself.

***

She takes a few days off from thinking about stuff because she feels tired when she didn’t do anything whatsoever. Except she knows it wouldn’t work without distractions. So she reads _Dracula_ , and _The Artists and Margarita_ , and she doesn’t get out of her room except when she has to, and her music is blasting to the point where her parents need to bang on her door to tell her to turn it down at night, so she picks up her Beats, and continues reading.

It’s numbing in a way that’s quiet. Like you don’t care being numb, like you have better things to do than worry about being numb, like your backbone doesn’t hurt and your lips aren’t chapped.

She’s breathing, but it doesn’t feel like air. It feels like she’s breathing in ink.

Three books in she manages to download one single _Monty Python_ movie to watch on her private telly. It’s a nice break from words, from her brain being constantly on alert. Plus, it’s funny as hell.

Her parents come knocking sometimes, see if everything’s good. She tells them it is. She doesn’t speak a lot in dinners and stuff but she makes an effort to, so they wouldn’t come more often. Kieren doesn’t _really_ talk to her, he shows up once in awhile, but goes away when she doesn’t show any interest in communication.

It’s not that she feels great, it’s that she doesn’t feel awful.

Her games are staring at her from the corner of the room, plastic gun covered in cloth but she knows it is there. It’s a practice in self restraint, ignoring them. It’s a practice that sometimes requires more effort than she could give, but she does it anyway, because it makes her…in control.

Yeah, in control.

***

In the middle of whichever book in the _Discworld_ she’s currently reading, Jem feels an urge to pee that was probably ignored in favour of another chapter, another page, another line. She keeps on reading the five pages she got to finish before the end of that part and then gently lays the book on her bed, and gets up with a huff.

She goes to check on her download of The Young Ones, still stuck on a little more than half, and then to take another glass of water when she runs her hand absentmindedly through her head and realizes what a mess it is. Oily and unkempt. Disaster.

_And then_ , when she gets back to her room, everything _stinks_.

That’s a problem.

That’s two problems, actually.

Probably a few more.

She shuffles to her calendar to look at her Off days, which she marked in green to keep a track on, and says, out loud after a long period of quiet: “Well, fuck.”

Her throat is croaking.

She didn’t notice Kieren sticking his head in the door until he says: “What?”

Jem turns around. “I think I’ve overdone this.”

Kieren looks at her likes he wants to say a lot of things about how she’s right, but says nothing. She’s not sure if that’s worse. Eventually he just says: “You’ve definitely overdone the whole not showering part.”

“Oh, _shut up_.”

But she goes to take a shower anyway.

***

The site says: **“We have a team of psychotherapists and psychiatrists with varying expertise. Our goal, is of course, to go through the process of healing with you, not alone. Communication is the number one key. Comfort, connection.**

**You can set a meeting by a phone or e-mail, the details are in our contact page.**

**We hope you’d want to get to know us.”**

The site is bullshit, but she can tell the site knows it, so maybe that’s okay.

***

“So I’ve been thinking, Kier, the psych ward. Not that far, yeah? I can take a train there and back, I suppose, in the same day and all. We’ll need to add this to our calculations, I mean, it’s not as cheap as taking a bus and all, but I think…I think I want to try it, yeah?”

Kieren’s radiant, yet what he says is: “Jem, calm down. We’ll call them. See what they have to say? Check the ground.”

“Sure.” She tries to sound casual, even though she feels like she’s doing something for the first time in months.

Kieren gets up immediately, goes to their computer. She’s not alone, but she suddenly feels like it. There is sudden silence and the action sinks down and she’s having trouble swallowing. She gets up slowly, stands behind Kieren and he checks what the number is.

“Hey, Kier?” she asks quietly.

“Yeah?” Kieren says without looking up.

There’s a flood coming out of her mouth: “Can you do the phoning? It’s just, I mean, I’m not even sure what to ask, or what to expect, and, you know, generally I don’t know how this whole thing works, the closest I’ve been to is some grief counseling back at school and I imagine that’s nothing of that sort, and, you know.”

Kieren doesn’t laugh, but he makes an amused noise. “I’ll do the phoning,” he says. “As long as you’ll do the rest.” He twists his head to look at her.

She doesn’t know what her face is doing, but it must show a great deal of gratitude, it wouldn’t make sense otherwise. “Thank you,” she whispers.

“Always.”

***

Jem gets colder now, what with less hair on her scalp and all, so she digs up an old scrappy beanie from her closet. It’s olive-green, matches the jacket with all the pins and studs she had before tucking it away in favour of her uniform. She digs that one out as well. She wears them both, goes to the mirror. Frankly, she’s ridiculous with them atop of her pajamas, but it makes her warm nonetheless.

Jem used to put a lot into her fashion. Dark colours, mostly, throwing some brightness into the mix in the little things, never going out without meticulously shaping her outfit. Kieren used to have the most bizarre articles, and their parents, with the simple jeans-and-T-shirt and blouses and skirts, never got it, never understood what kind of statement they were making.

She takes all of her clothes off, then takes out a plain pair of black jeans, a button-up shirt that was turned into a vest, and wears everything, again covering herself with the coat and the beanie.

Better. Much better.

(Kieren wears hoodies now. And she’s not as elaborated as she was before. But she doesn’t think it’s a change, more akin to a shift in the tide.)

***

When she finds out that Simon plays the guitar, it’s the most beautiful thing to happen to her. Ever. Like, seriously, ever. She even goes as far as to say this out loud. Kieren is extremely pleased. Simon doesn’t get why it’s funny, so she spends half a day sitting with her head leaning on her palms, tilted to the side, saying, “But you must play us a song!” and other variations.

Simon literally growls (doesn’t talk much, that guy. It’s a miracle that Kieren can get more than one word out of him. She also said that out loud), and it’s not even a little bit scary. (Okay, so she’ll regret this statement later, but for the time being and all).

After he probably had enough, and after Kieren probably had enough of being amused and elbowed him, Simon says: “Fine.”

It’s like a challenge, and like a whole new world of possibilities.

“Make a request,” Simon continues. His voice is soothed down, calmer. Like he cares, suddenly, about talking to Jem.

“Can I make a request?” Kieren budges in.

“No,” Simon and her say in unison. It’s very awkward.

Now all of the family has something to look forward to for the next time that Simon comes around, other than her dad making pop culture references no one understands or cares about.

***

“I phoned them,” Kieren announces at an early hour of the morning when Jem is only rolling in her bed and tries to bring herself to get out, standing at her doorway. “The psyche ward,” he clarifies, as if that is enough to get Jem following right now.

“What?” she mumbles.

“We said I’d call them, remember? To check the ground?”

“Oh, yeah,” she continues mumbling.

“So I did.”

“And?”

“They said you can come in for a get-to-know-each-other meeting, see if it fits.”

“Thought you checked the ground.”

_“Jem.”_

“Fine, alright!” She pushes herself to sit, blanket and pillows falling all around her. “That’s good. That’s great. Can I please wake up before we talk about this?”

***

“So Jem is going to therapy,” is Kieren’s way of talking about this, apparently. Their parents direct all of their scrutiny to her. She swallows down her pancakes.

“That’s good,” her father says. “Shirley is very ni – “

“Not at Shirley’s,” she cuts him off.

“Oh?” her mother asks.

“Yeah, there’s like, an institute at Blackpool, not that far. They seem nice.”

There’s silence for a moment. Kieren had abandoned the conversation completely, and he can’t even eat, so that’s pathetic. She scowls at him, he shrugs.

“Wherever you want to go,” her mother reassures, gaining confidence back.

“Yeah,” her father agrees. “Well, we’ll have to work out the finances, I suppose, but then it’s worth it, isn’t it?”

Her head is spinning.

“Very much so.”

She needs to cut this.

“Um,” Jem interrupts her parents. “I don’t _know_ yet, it just seems like the best possibility. And I don’t want you paying the whole sum anyway, it’ll be too much.”

Her parents seem apologetic momentarily, then proud, and then her father jumps the whole table when a light bulb literally lights above his head and he says, “Oh!”

“Honey?” their mother lays a hand on his shoulder.

Jem is muted, and Kieren…she doesn’t care. That git.

“How are you with papers?” her father asks her.

“Alright?” Jem says uncertainly. Her heart is still pounding and she tries to calm it down before anyone would notice.

She looks at her mother. She’s as lost as her.

“I think I’ve got a job for you.” Her father graces them with an explanation. Which is when Kieren decides to show his presence by laughing.

“Shut it, git.” Jem points a finger at him, then turns back to her father: “What are you talking about, dad?”

“Look, I’m gonna check everything, but it’ll be very low key, very quiet, you’ll make some money, and we’ll split any fee you’ll need between us.”

“Between all of us,” Kieren says seriously.

Jem is overwhelmed, if to say the truth. She has a lot running through her head and through her veins and she doesn’t know what she wants to let out.

She lowers her head.

“Hey,” her mother lifts her chin. “Look up.” She kisses her forehead.

They all continue eating. Well, nearly all.

They will still need to talk about it more.

Later, Kieren will say: “I told you to leave it to me.”

Jem will still be a bit mad about him dropping a bomb on her, and will say: “Yeah, telling mum and dad what we would’ve needed to tell them anyway.”

Kieren will respond with: “Yeah, could have gone differently about that, but I know you.”

Jem will grunt. And then, before they will spit, will say: “That went well.” And she will honestly be relieved.

Kieren will say: “They’re great, sometimes.”

*  
She now has a job organizing papers, the relevant ones, which will be noted with a red sticker-note, and the not relevant ones, green stickers, she needs to shred. It’s at the pharmacy her father works at, but nowhere near the drugs, some back office, and it’s horribly, _horribly_ boring. She can’t even read the papers because she doesn’t understand the damn jargon.

So she has her iPod’s battery drained every time she goes to work.

The good thing is that her and mum and dad set down to figure everything out, moneywise, and now she doesn’t feel like a burden, now she feels like something can actually happen, like it’ll go.

The bad thing is, she does have some interaction with outside people at work, on breaks and stuff. Now, it could have been not that bad. She’s used to hating people. But the thing is, stuff are happening at Roarton. She knows because stuff had been happening before – before. And because when you spend your time constantly looking over your shoulder you learn to recognize when others do the same. She doesn’t know exactly what, and she wants to keep it that way. She wants to be as far from it as she can, right now. That was part of the point of getting someone out of Roarton, that was part of the point of locking herself inside the house. She can’t deal with that right now, it wouldn’t work if she’ll deal with that right now. It needs to be behind her on the timeline.

So that’s a problem, yeah.

But it’s a manageable problem. What the hell had she gotten Beats for if not for tuning people out?

***

_I had to shoot them! I had to! There was no one!_

***

It’s a month later when she’s on a train, burrowing into her leather jacket, Doc Martens up on the seat, Amy’s flower is spinning in her hand and Kieren’s mix playing on her iPod. She’s clutching a bag mum insisted on packing her, full of another layer to warm her if she needs it, soda, and sandwiches made by her dad.

_No such thing as tomorrow_  
All we want, Two, three, go!  
Time, got the time tick tick tickin' in my head  
Time, got the time tick tick tickin' in my head  
Time, got the time tick tick tickin' in my head  
Tickin' in my head, tickin' in my head, tickin' in my head 


	2. Chapter 2

She thinks, fear – fear is the worst.

It is inseparable; ingrained so deep inside of you that you will need to cut the root to stop feeling it.

Incapacitating.

**Incapacitate** [in-k _uh-_ **pas** -i-teyt]  
 _v. to deprive of ability, qualification, or strength; make incapable or unfit;disable._

**PART II**

Kieren couldn’t come with her, not without a valid ID to get him on the train. It doesn’t matter. There’s a limit to what Jem can ask from Kieren, a limit to what she _wants_ to ask from Kieren. This is on her, for her, about her, hers.

It’s alright, everybody’s just a phone call away. Mum, dad, Kier. (No one else, no one else, no one else, no one else, no one else – )

She runs her thumb on the iPod reel until the volume hurts. Then the train ride is quiet except for the music blasting in her ears. She doesn’t drift away, doesn’t fall asleep, or more precisely – doesn’t allow herself to. It would be a nightmare, literally. She would much rather let punk-rock make her ears bleed if that’s what it requires.

_The Dead Kennedys_ it is, then.

It’s a fifty minute ride, going slowly further away from Roarton’s familiar, boring, exceptionally grey-ish green view. It doesn’t become less of a fields-and-trees type of ride, but it does become less isolated, if that even makes sense. She doesn’t know, she just feels like she’s going out of a vacuum.

She’s going to somewhere that is definitely closer to be a city than Roarton is, and that is…exciting, in a way. In a lot of ways. Not all good.

Fine, fine, fine, she’s gonna be fine.

Jem digs up a sandwich and the tiny map she’s drawn of how to get from Blackpool North train station to the treatment centre (“Don’t call it a psych ward when you’re there.” “Yeah, alright, don’t fret.”). She deposits Amy’s flower in her hair for safety, unwraps the sandwich, and stares at the map while nibbling on it.

It’s simple – get out to Springfield Rd, walk straight past Dickson Rd until Abingdon Rd, then left, and straight till you reach the circus; the treatment centre will be there. No reason to get lost, no reason to take too long, she’ll probably get there early, even, have a few minutes to just sit with herself and take the place in. And later, when she’ll finish way before her next train, she can go check out the local library right next to it, since Roarton doesn’t believe in libraries or something.

She has it all planned out.

She folds the map in one handed, clenches and unclenches it while swallowing another bite.

The train is moving fast.

She sometimes dreams about the brothel – dreams that make her feel the hair that she pulled between her fingers, hear the people shouting abuse that the PDS sufferers, see the two lines that were form painted in black and white, then muddling all into grey when Philip, who couldn’t do anything right to save his life, took the stand. Took the bullet. And Jem Walker didn’t move, didn’t bleep; Just stood there with the HVF armband on.

She sometimes dreams about the point she was trying to prove, but it doesn’t matter.

Jem Walker stood still.

This isn’t a nightmare, it’s the reality.

And she doesn’t know if she’ll ever make up for that.

 

***

Blackpool has a different smell. Of course, there is still the same cold dump air, but with a pinch of salt. The Walk in nice; concrete that isn’t all bumpy, red brick buildings and the occasional shop, s p a c e. It isn’t an early hour of the day, but the clouds make it seem so, and the lack of people on the street help. Jem walks with her hands in her coat pockets and with her eyes wondering all around.

The treatment centre is integrated into the row of buildings and is easy to miss, but Jem spots it in time without having to go back and forth on the same street pointlessly. She needs to cross the road, but right now there’s a nice bench to sit and wait on, so she decides to do that instead of sit inside a building.

There are a lot more people at this area, and a lot more shops. A lot more activity. She has her music off since her ears started to hurt in a not pleasuring way, and it takes her a few moments before she actually enjoys the humming of movement, lets it sooth her. _It is directed nowhere near you_ , she reminds herself. _Nobody cares you are here_.

It’s fifteen minutes before her meeting, and she wants to be inside at least five minutes earlier, so there’s no reason going around. She takes out what didn’t finish of her sandwich and the soda as well, and has a nice pseudo meal in the street of a city she’s unfamiliar with, and it is like taking a real deep breath of clean air after holding it because you can’t breathe in smoke.

With a last bite and a perfectly calculated last sip, Jem licks her fingers, and goes to the treatment centre six minutes early.

She walks through the watershed.

The first thing she sees is a plant that looks like it doesn’t need a lot of watering. The second thing is a man talking on the phone behind a counter. The third is three other people waiting in armchairs down the hall.

_Tick, Tick, And Tick_.

 Jem’s fingers twitch. She brings her hand up to wrap them around her headphones. She breathes in, breathes out, breathes in, and goes up to the counter.

The man smiles at her and signals for her to wait a minute with his hand. Jem’s too busy looking around and Ticking everything in her mind to notice what he’s talking about on the phone, or when the phone call ends, or when he tells her hello about three times before she shifts her eyes to him.

Room numbers, _Tick_ , lift, _Tick_ , door to staircase, _Tick_ , nice flowers, _Tick_.

“Hello.”

“Um, hey.”

He’s still smiling but it’s in his eyes as well so it’s not that bad. “How may I help you?”

“My name is Jem Walker, I have an appointment,” she says straightforwardly, then stares at his typing fingers.

“Right,” he says cheerily. “You go one floor up, and to your left, you can take a sit, Doctor Eisely will be with you soon.”

One floor up (staircase), to her left, there’s a square foyer with a carpet that swooshes under Jem’s feet, and three armchairs, and only one door.

Jem sits.

Jem waits.

 

***

“So I understand your brother called us.” Eisley says after a few moments of silence.He has voice that is quiet and deep, and accent that isn’t as sharp as Jem’s, and a posture that says ‘RESPECT’ in big bold letters on it. His skin is darker than Jem’s, almost brown, and he wears cardigans like some sort of a caricature. At least he doesn’t have glasses.

“Yes.” Jem says, uncertain of what to do.

“Did you want to come here?” he continues.

She’s a bit confused. “Yes.”

“That’s good, that’s a good start. Therapy is something that thrives on willingness.”

“I suppose,” Jem says instead of saying nothing. She really does not know what to say. But she is willing, isn’t she? She asked for help, and she got here, and if that means something than that’s good. She’s good. “I don’t know what to say.” She admits.

“That’s alright.” He isn’t smiling, but since she first walked after him into the room it looks as if he is. The sort of smile that is genuine and isn’t forced and comes naturally to some rare people. But she doesn’t know why she thinks this, it just…feels like it. “Do you want to tell me about yourself? Do you want me to ask qurstions? Which is a stupid question, I suppose, since I already am. But nevertheless.”

“There’s not much to tell,” she laughs sarcastically, a tad too hysterically for her own taste. Then she adds, “I used to kill zombies, and now I don’t know what to do.”

Now he does smile, the same smile Jem felt. “HVF?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“You lot are messed up.”

Jem snorts. “You have no idea.”

“Tell me?”

She hesitates. “I…don’t know.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” she says, frustrated. She can’t put her finger on what it is that’s stopping her. But it’s important, both the story and the thing that’s stopping her from telling it.

“We can get back to it, if you’d like to.”

She breathes in, nods. She doesn’t want to panic here, maybe that’s a better option, since she feels it coming.

“What else does Jem Walker do?”

Well that’s a whole different panic attack coming. She shrugs.

“Kills zombies on her xBox?”

Eisely laughs.

“I like music.” Jem shoots.

Eisley straightens in his sit. “Music is _fantastic_.”

“Yeah,” she agrees.

“What do you like?”

 

 

***

At the end of the hour Eisley asks if she wants to make another appointment. Jem says that she would like to, yes, sounds good. He gets his iPhone out and asks if same day and time will be good. Jem says that yes, it is, sounds good.

They say goodbye.

Her body feels weird, like her blood is buzzing, but not with energy. She can’t really think, so she puts her headphones on as soon as she pays the man behind the counter is cash. He tells her thank you, but she’s only reading his lips by now. She waves goodbye.

She checks her watch.

Forty minutes till the next train, fifteen minutes walk so let’s take twenty; that leaves twenty minutes to spend.

The cold air cuts at her face, but it’s a nice sort of cut, like scratching an itch. The music talk got her in the mood for some classics, so _Sugar, We’re Going Down_ is playing, and Jem looks right and left, then heads to the library.

She doesn’t hear what the librarian says to her, if she says anything at all, or if other people tell her something when she heads straight to the Fantasy and Sci-Fi section.

She mostly likes holding heavy books in her hands.

Jem picks one that is particularly big. She holds it in both hands, front cover up, lifting it and lowering it a couple of times before reading the name.

_The Name Of The Wind_ , it says, with branches coming out of the letters. There’s a hooded figure standing in the middle of dark trees and vines.

Jem sits on the spot, legs folded, iPod skipping next to _Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner_. She skips the acknowledgments and the map straight to the first lines.

_It was night again_ , it begins.

 

*** 

She took a nap on the train back.

It was a mistake.

She is shuddering.

 

*** 

Mum and Dad aren’t home when she gets in, but Kieren and Simon are waiting for her. You could think they’d bring cake and balloons.

Picturing Kieren and Simon holding balloons like it’s her sixth birthday helps some with getting rid of the shudders, but she still just wants to crawl into her bed and think about her half day and maybe drink some tea while listening to _SING_ on repeat.

But Kieren looks so expectant, and Simon looks like he’d cut the throat of whoever will stop Kieren from looking like that, so she smiles tiredly, says, “I’m knackered. Train rides are much more exhausting than you’d expect.”

“Crash for a bit?” Kieren asks. Simon’s eyes are wide, but they might as well be squinting.

She nods. “Talk later?”

“Sure,” Kieren tries to sound casual, and not like the weight of the world hangs on Jem actually getting help.

“Thanks,” Jem says, than heads to her room.

“You want a cup of tea?” Kieren asks her before she goes up the stairs.

And then there’s a sudden flash-like picture, woods, and Henry walking up her way, and Jem closes her eyes but it doesn’t go away, and then there’s a shot, and black blood, and Jem opens them, and everything is exactly where it was again.

She shakes her head hurriedly, an almost painful shake, tries to not let out that this happened. She blurts out, “You’re the best,” then runs up to her room.

She shuts the door, connects her iPod to the speakers with shaking hands, puts it on repeat, then falls on her bed and buries her face in her pillow, barely breathing out _I don’t deserve forgiveness, I don’t deserve forgiveness, I don’t deserve forgiveness…_

*** 

It’s morning when Jem feels a pressure next to her on the bed. She opens her eyes; they seem to be puffy, and it’s hard to see who it is.

“Um,” she croaks out.

“I made lunch,” her mother says.

Oh. So it’s not morning.

“Kieren said you looked a bit off yesterday.”

She missed a whole day.

Her family was talking about her behind her back.

She’s not sure how she feels about that. Then, she’s not sure how she feels, generally.

“Did therapy go okay?”

“Um,” she croaks out.

Everything is disoriented and she can’t remember what happened and she can’t comprehend what her mother is saying.

Then there’s a hand on her back. “The kettle is boiling, come downstairs.”

Her mother is gone when she catches the chorus of _SING_ playing in the background, volume lower than it was when she put it on.

Jem sags into her bed.

 

*** 

_“Personally, I’d love some music recommendations.”_

_“Yeah I’ll make you a list. I don’t know though, I’m pretty hardcore.”_

_“I can deal with that. I’m not as fragile as my cardigan is.”_

 

*** 

She goes downstairs after combing her hair. It’s always been soft enough to manage in whatever situation, and she doesn’t feel like taking a shower, but it’s better to show some sort of caring for yourself to her parents.

Jem doesn’t say a thing, just sinks into a chair at the head of the table, front of her father. He raises his head from a newspaper with a headline about Victus that Jem immediately shifts her eyes away from, and smiles weakly.

“Morning, princess.”

He used to call her that when she was younger, but then Jem worked her nerves up to telling people off for calling her stuff she didn’t like, and her father was too proud to continue doing that.

“Jemima!” her mother turns away from the three cups of tea she’s currently making like she didn’t sit and waited to hear Jem going down the stairs to prepare them.

Everything is horrible, and her tea tastes like it’s been boiled over and over again.

She tells her parents she needs a shower, then goes upstairs.

She doesn’t hear what they tell her back.

Charlotte was right, everybody’s big war hero is a thing of shame, not of pride.

Jem takes out a pen from her pencil case, rips a page out of a barely-used notebook, and concentrates on the rec list she’d promised Eisley. She doesn’t skip the classics, the classics are important. She starts alphabetically.

By the time she’s through ( _X-Ray Spex, Yo La Tengo, Zero Boys_ ), it’s two-sided and every line is filled. It’s night time, and Jem goes to take a shower. Her parents are sleeping, and Kieren isn’t home.

She spends the night listening to _While The City Sleeps. We Rule The Streets_ and searching online for clothes on sale.

 

***

_“Sometimes we make mistakes, and we’re not completely ourselves when we make them, but we still need to deal with the consequences. It’s not quite fair, is it?”_

_“I don’t know.”_

_“Well, this is what I’m here for. This, that, anything you want me to be here for. I’m here for you. This is your place, Jem.”_

*** 

She doesn’t know, but sometimes she thinks, that, unconsciously, Eisley is trying to push her to talk about certain things. Maybe it’s part of his job, but she thinks it’s hypocritical to tell her it’s going to be under her own terms and then do that.

She told him about music, and about not sleeping well because of nightmares (didn’t really specify on that), and about mum and dad, and Kieren being PDS when she was absolutely sure that was safe. She told him tons of stuff, in her opinion.

“Can I have a library card here or is it only for residents?” she cuts him off mid sentence. She wasn’t really paying attention to what he said. He seems a bit fazed but he answers anyway.

“I think it’s possible. You can ask them.”

That’s unhelpful; Jem didn’t want to talk to them until she was sure. She tells him that. Eisley hesitates for a second, then says:

“I think it’s important that you do, Jem.”

She opens her mouth, then shuts it. “Why?” she eventually wonders.

“Because that could be your new version of getting a mix CD from your brother. Think about it.”

She does.

 

*** 

School has been great with her. Her parents came to discuss it with them, and they’d told her she can do this year again when she’s up to it. She remembers missing nearly half a year after Kieren’s suicide and then working her arse off to get to the A-levels, only to join the HVF and not do them, only to do them later then quit because of her…mental break down, whatever this is.

She doesn’t want to think about it, because she gets incredibly frustrated and wants to break stuff (she did. Her plastic gun was in pieces on the floor of her room, and she needed to tidy it to get rid of the sharp pieces, but it’s nearly back to the usual catastrophe now, and, well, she doesn’t have that atrocity in her room anymore), so she thinks about how she doesn’t need to worry right now, pointedly, with a purpose.

She doesn’t need to worry right now, she doesn’t need to worry right now, she doesn’t need to worry right now –

Even if she doesn’t know what she’s doing.

 

*** 

The next time she talks to Kieren after the incident he isn’t with Simon, because she waited until he wouldn’t be. It’s not that they ignored each other, it’s that it was…empty.

It’s another apology. She owes him about a thousand of those now, it seems.

Kieren cuts her off midway.

“You don’t need to keep apologizing, Jem. We’re both going through our own things. It’s really okay that you’re going through yours.”

“But I do. I did stuff that weren’t great, in an understatement, specifically to you, and I want to…I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to.”

They’re sitting outside of their house, leaning against the shed, and Jem is plucking at twigs while Kieren’s knees are pressed to his chest, hands wrapped around them. “Look,” he opens, then quiets himself as if he’s figuring out how to word what he wants to say. “There’s no redemption, right? None. There’s only getting better. And that’s what you’re doing, so. I need to be patient with it, don’t I?”

“Kier…”

“I do, that’s my turn to apologize. I do.”

She stops her plucking to place her hand on his forearm.

“We’re both working on it,” he says.

“Yeah,” Jem agrees.

“So, don’t apologize for working on it. I know what you did, right? And I’m here, right? Cause I know you. And I love you.”

She feels her throat closing up. “Kier?” she manages.

Kieren stops looking to the distant like he’s older than he is. “Yeah?”

“I love you too.”

 

*** 

She’s able to get a membership for a year in exchange for a small fee, and Jem thanks the librarian and dashes to get _The Name of the Wind_.

She reads it on the train back home.

And then at home.

And by the time she goes back to Blackpool she’d finished it, and she gets the other one in the series.

She’s occupied for the next month now.

 

***

“What will happen, if you tell me all those things you’re saving for later?” Eisley asks after Jem turns quiet, consequence of another block of her life that got mangled with all the stuff she’s currently locking up.

“I don’t know,” is her immediate response.

 “Can you think about it? If you want to tell me, and you tell me, then what will happen?”

Jem shrugs. She really doesn’t know.

“It doesn’t have to be a concrete answer,” Eisley goes on. “You don’t have to tell me anything now. Just think about it.”

Jem nods just to shut him up. If she doesn’t know then that’s probably not the reason she’s not talking about certain things. Maybe she’s just not ready, maybe it’s not a good time, maybe she just wants to talk about Gerard Way’s new album right now.

“So…” she says after a long silence. She’s starting to feel agitated and jumpy, her fingers digging into the fabric of her armchair, her legs drumming an inconsistent rhythm.

Sometimes Eisley is cryptic and annoying, she decides.

“Do you want to go back to talking about music?” he asks with a crooked smile.

“Sure,” Jem says, like it isn’t what she’s been craving.

“Alright. But, Jem?” he stops to see she’s really listening.

“Yes?” she asks, confused. He never addresses her like that.

“You can tell me if I’m going too far. It’s even advisable.”

Jem blinks a couple of times. Then she says: “Okay.”

Eisley switches between his crossed legs. “So you were telling me about _Hesitant Alien_ …”

 

*** 

It’s that day when she marks a red X on her calendar and she fathoms the fact it’s been nearly two months since she started going to Eisley. There’s a sort of edginess to that understanding, like it’s a lot of time and not enough all at once, like she’s done something big and haven’t done anything at all simultaneously.

Eisley said that willingness is the key. Kieren spoke about determination, not upfront, but it underlined his personality, always. She thinks about how she got both, and she thinks about beginnings.

She thinks that maybe two months can be just that, a beginning.

But then she thinks, what if it’s not enough.

What if she’s supposed to be somewhere else entirely right now.

It’s exhausting, going back and forth, so Jem puts on _The Buzzcocks_ to turn it off.

_Operator’s manual_   
_Tells me what to do_   
_When emotions blow a fuse_   
_And I'm feeling blue_

  


*** 

Then there’s that day where she and Simon are left alone for a couple of minutes as Kieren runs along to help their dad with something in the garden. He sighed, said he’ll be right back, then took a long glance at them, probably decided they’re gonna be at least _fine_ , and shuffled away.

Simon stares at her, the sort of stare that fills the room with the sound of the wheels in his head clicking. He has his make-up and contact lenses on today, so Jem’s body isn’t sweating as badly as usual.

She leans back. “You know, you should really cut down on looking so intensely at people. I mean, I know it’s your thing and all, but it’s still creepy.”

Simon seems to lighten up at that. He’s still sitting stiffly as usual, looking as a dead body as possible, like it’s his way of sticking it to people, but his face are…something else. Something softer.

“You sound like your brother,” he says.

And then Jem gets it. “You really are whipped for him,” she says.

Simon sighs with air that Jem’s not quite sure what they use for. How the hell does their body function, it’s not like they’re living on anything. And how hard does she need to poke Simon’s ribs to hurt him.

Simon sighs, and then he says, cheekily, which was a thing that Jem only _heard_ about with him, “I can’t believe I need to deal with your whole family because of that.”

“I _know_. We’re horrible.”

Kieren comes back. He looks horrified. So Jem says, “Just on time, I was about to pull out the baby pictures.”

He grabs Simon and glares pointedly at Jem. “I’m sorry I’ve left you to bathe in this domestic hell.”

“Not at all,” is Simon’s reply.

He’s funny, when you get around his pose.

 

*** 

She doesn’t think about Eisley’s question until it becomes impossible to think about anything but it.

Jem’s dad asks her to get the vacuum cleaner out of the shed, and she goes, and when she’s there, her pistol falls out from above, hits the floor in a clank of metal, and Jem jumps to the far corner, and needs to calm herself down for ten minutes, until her dad calls out to see if she’s alright.

She isn’t, but she grabs the vacuum, and gets out quickly, leaving the gun where it was.

She avoids the woods for the obvious reasons. She avoids school for the obvious reasons. She avoids the supermarket for the obvious reasons. She avoids the smell of gunpowder and fire for the obvious reasons. She avoids looking straight at PDS sufferers for the obvious reasons. She avoids a lot of stuff for the obvious reasons.

But what will happen if she talks about these reasons with Eisley?

She doesn’t know.

And suddenly it doesn’t make sense to avoid something without a clear reasoning behind it.

So she thinks about Eisley’s question until there’s nothing else, and she still can’t point it out between the loud noises in her brain.

 

*** 

“I’ve been thinking. About what you asked.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I’m…I’m afraid. But I don’t know of what. And I’m afraid of being afraid of something inexplicable.”

“Do you want to think about this together?”

“Yes, I do, but…I think I need to wrap my head around it for a bit longer.”

“Okay. You like reading, yes?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“What if I’ll give you something to read about, would you do it?”

“Depends. What’s it about?”

“PTSD.”

*** 

She reads at work, absentmindedly shredding papers (she didn’t shred one she was supposed to, but she was lucky she didn’t shred one that she wasn’t supposed to, so), eating biscuits from a pick and mix box her mother sends with her.

Eisley gave her some links, the content of them she copied to a word document since their print would definitely not handle whole web pages, and she takes one with her each time she goes, stacked neatly in her bag inside one of the barely-used notebooks.

_“This is not_ trauma _,” she’d said. And Eisley said that yes, he might be wrong, he’s always might be wrong, but read it, decide for yourself. You know yourself, and maybe together we can get to know you even better._

So she took the links, and didn’t do anything for a couple of days except stare at them aggressively. But then it wasn’t as satisfying as she thought it would be. But then she snapped at her mother for asking her how she was doing.

Some are informational (“How Can I Tell if I Have PTSD?”), some talk about symptoms (nightmares, flashbacks, feelings of extreme distress, and so it goes), some talk about treatment (acronyms like CBT and EMDR, she’ll read up on those later), and some talk about self care (“Spend time in nature,” they say, as if Jem can do that in a town surrounded by a nature she’s avoiding painstakingly, ‘Get back to your usual routine’. Yeah. Alright. “Don’t stay away from other people”, “Don’t avoid talking about it”, “Don’t beat yourself up about it”, there are a lot of demands), and some has experiences in them (what does PTSD feel like?).

Something reverberates inside of Jem, like finally finding the precise volume to listen to a band and then it’s not your earphones playing the music anymore, it’s the inside of your head.

And then, like binge eating Jelly Bellys, she runs to the bathroom to throw up.

 

*** 

She has full twenty four hours to decide what to talk about with Eisley.

So naturally Jem puts on _Nick Cave & The Bed Seeds_.

_Pass me that lovely little gun_   
_My dear, my darling one_   
_The cleaners are coming, one by one _  
 _You don't even want to let them start___

*** 

She doesn’t decide.

But it’s a good listening.

 

*** 

But _how_ is she supposed to decide? You can’t compartmentalize these things, if she’d get to talking about the reasons she’s afraid to talk about stuff then she’d get to talking about stuff and that’s…that’s something that…she doesn’t know.

_The sun is high up in the sky and I'm in my car_   
_Drifting down into the abattoir_   
_Do you see what I see, dear?_   
  
_The air grows heavy. I listen to your breath_   
_Entwined together in this culture of death_   
_Do you see what I see, dear?_

*** 

It takes time for Kieren to gather the courage to say: “You’ve stuck with Eisley for a while now.”

Jem bites her lip. “Yeah, he’s, um. He’s nice.”

Kieren nods. Sometimes he looks like he did when they were kids, all frailness and wonder and sensitivity. He never quite grew out of that, but sometimes it’s less…dark.

“I’m happy for you,” he announces, and his smile is so wide that it must be painful to normal-feeling people.

That’s what she means in less dark.

“Me too. I think. It’s, um, it’s…good. I think.”

Simon comes to pick Kieren up, waits for him at the edge of the entry road like he doesn’t want Kieren to go alone, looking at nothing but at Kieren and Jem sitting together and waits.

“I told your boyfriend he’s creepy but apparently he doesn’t listen,” she says, then gets up to her feet.

“I told you to be _nice_ ,” he groans.

“I was!” She gives him a hand.

They both brush dirt off their clothes, and Jem waves to Simon who waves back, and then they go their separate ways.

She watches them kiss outside of their window. Rick and Kieren never did that.

 

*** 

“What part resonated with you most?”

“The thing about having PTSD means being stuck?”

“Yeah? Why?”

“Because…because all I want is to get unstuck, and…and, yeah. It just struck me, this particular word. Stuck.”

“You _can_ get unstuck, Jem. It’s not a far off dream.”

“Can I though?”

“If you’re willing to do the work, then yes. Remember? Willingness.”

She doesn’t need to ask what sort of work he’s talking about. She’s…she wants to be willing. But is she, though?

*** 

Dad and her started going to fish and chips at lunch when Jem works. It’s a nice route, two streets of nothing more than three or four houses, and one that Jem never used to walk in. Roarton that isn’t haunted can be nice, actually. She likes the air, it’s her home, after all.

“So what have you been up to?” Her dad asks like he’s catching up with her, swallowing a bite.

“The usual.” There’s nothing to catch up on.

“We do notice the loud music, you know.” He nearly winks.

Jem rolls her eyes and continues eating her half finished meal. She’s not really hungry anymore but her dad will notice if she’ll stop eating now.

“I know, dad. I just don’t care.” She shrugs, smiles a sly smile.

Her dad sighs dramatically.

They eat in peaceful silence for a while, and then:

“Any good books?”

“Dad, you don’t even read.”

“It’s called conversing.”

“I have nothing to converse about!” she suddenly snaps. She doesn’t know why she’d gotten so irritated; her dad’s just trying to be nice. But she hates talking about her life, _hates_ it, they could have just eaten.

Her dad is positively gutted. He doesn’t try to talk afterwards.

Jem feels sick, but she makes no effort on her part as well.

They go back to work, and Jem finishes earlier than him, which is a relief, since she can get back home alone.

No one’s home when she enters the house, and she goes straight up to her room. It’s messier than usual and it takes her a couple of minutes to put her stuff where she likes them, getting rid of some microwave’d leftovers if she’s already at it, then stands in front of her mirror.

It’s uncomfortable in a manner she cannot explain when she says to her reflection: “I have PTSD and I need to talk about some shit.”

 

***

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“Do you want me to guide you?”

She nods.

“It’s not going to be easy.”

She nods again.

“Okay. Why won’t you start at the beginning?”

So she tells him about the first time she didn’t kill Kieren.

 

*** 

She starts taking a later train home, spends an hour in the library after each meeting, bundled up in a corner with a random book she doesn’t even concentrate on but it’s big enough to swallow her whole.  She does that until her head is not swarming in a way that drowns out music, and then leaves the book in its place, rents out a random collection of short stories, and heads back home.

The train ride consists of fidgeting with her earphones cable and eating her two sandwiches with large bites.

When she gets home, if there are people there, it’s as if they take one glance and understand. If there aren’t, then what does it matter?

Reliving the experiences is not what she expected it to be. It’s not relief that washes over her, it’s dread, unbearable dread, and she fights every single word to get it out, because someone out there is convinced that this is the answer, and she had tried a lot of different answers, so why not try this one.

(Because it’s tougher, disassembles her from the inside out until she doesn’t know who she is anymore. But she always wanted to say that she’s strong, so maybe after this, maybe after telling each story again and again until it fades into its own shadow she’ll be rebuilt, and she could say – here I am, and I am strong.

It doesn’t feel like it now, though.)

She doesn’t miss killing, she misses the sense of control; knowing that whatever comes her way, it can’t harm her as long as she’s sharp enough. The sense of owning herself. Of being the master and not the puppet.

She knows it’s wrong, thinking about it like that. And she doesn’t want it that way anymore, can’t have it like that anymore. But if she can’t get control there, then where will she?

 

***

Each session begins with a question: What would you like to talk about today?

It’s a setting that Jem likes, and she has a name for each story she carefully crafted beforehand to be told. But even though, it comes out as a mess.

Jem has the worst panic attack trying to talk about Gary. She gets out the words _pushed me into killing_ after a long period of heaving. _Let him_ nearly doesn’t come out at all.

She’s screaming bloody murder talking about the incident at the school, and can’t stop crying when talking about Charlotte.

She races through the events because she knows no other way, and Eisley tells her all the time that it’s alright, soothing voice, take your time, giving her water to drink.

He’s worried, but Jem can’t stop, even though she’s breathless; breathless talking about it, breathless afterwards, breathless at home, breathless all the time.

But somebody out there thinks that this helps.

She’s tired.

 

*** 

“Look,” Eisley says at the beginning of another meeting. “I think we’re going about it the wrong way.”

Jem’s eyes snap away from the floor to him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean – I didn’t realize it, but there is a linear line here connecting between events. Cause and effect. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Jem doesn’t, because she doesn’t have a counter argument, or an argument for him being right. She just says, “So?”

“So. I think cause and effect is what we should be talking about. Mainly, effect. You read about CBT, yeah?”

Jem nods.

“Alright, so I was thinking about trying that. See where we get from there. Which is not to say you shouldn’t be fronting these events. Fronting these events is your way of putting them under control, deciding where and when you would like to think about them. And I am sorry if I pushed you.”

Jem shakes her head, then: “No – “ she clears her throat, “No, you didn’t, I pushed myself, I –“

“That’s alright, pushing yourself is good, otherwise the barrier won’t come down. I’m just not sure we pushed the right way.”

There’s a silence where Jem doesn’t know what to say. Eisley goes on then.

“I know it doesn’t feel right yet, I know it is still suffocating, but is there anyone in your family or close circle you can talk the events through with?”

Jem doesn’t want to do that with Kieren, she doesn’t think that would be fair to him, though he will agree, because he’s Kieren, and Simon will stop him from agreeing, because he’s Simon, and Jem doesn’t want to do that. She knows mum and dad will be happy (well, happy is a stretch) to sit and listen if somebody told them that will help Jem, but she doesn’t want to do that either, not because of them, but because of herself. She’d hurt them enough, hurt her family enough, this will be a burden to an already burdened family, and she’s not sure it will be the right thing to do, for her.

“No,” she says plainly. It’s weird, like ‘loneliness’ is suddenly a word that’s there in her mouth along with it.

“Alright,” Eisley says, and he isn’t judgmental, but he isn’t pleased, either. “We’ll start here, with the here and now, and we’ll see how we do, yes?”

“Yes, okay.”

“And please, Jem, tell me if you think differently to me.”

“I...I will.”

“So CBT. I want to expand a bit more about that.”

 

*** 

She tries her best to sit at dinner, lunch, and breakfast with the rest of her family; eat, drink some tea, chat, a bit, maybe, when she’s not too on edge and afraid to take it out on them. Kieren still pretends to eat. They pretend together.

Sometimes Simon is there, and sometimes he isn’t, but Kieren always makes sure to point his attention to her when he thinks she needs it. Sometimes she needs the opposite, and sometimes it’s exactly the thing that was missing.

She makes sure to let him know, though.

“I need to be alone,” or, “Hey, Kier, can you sit with me for a bit?”

Eiseley says communication is important, and she thinks he might have a point.

Sometimes she sits with both Kieren and Simon, mostly silently enjoying their own communication and interrupts just to take the piss out of them. Simon takes it with brevity, Kieren is used to it.

It’s…nice. More peaceful.

She tells her dad she’s sorry about that time, and that other time, and that she’s making progress in therapy, she thinks. She doesn’t tell him that she doesn’t know where this is going and that she can’t say with certainty that she feels better.

Her mother’s arms are probably the warmest place on earth.

The nightmares go on.

 

*** 

_This one’s vivid. As colourful as life isn’t. She has her plastic gun, but there is not television screen, and no animation, and all the faces are real._

_This is a game, and Jem has to win._

_She shoots blindingly and there is no thrust and there is no bullet but everybody falls around here._

_This is a game, and Jem has to win._

_Her running is slowing, slowing down until she can’t lift her legs and she flings her hands around her, one with the plastic gun and one with a branch she picked up, and she shoots and shoots and shoots, she doesn’t need any reloading._

_This is a game, and Jem has to win._

_She’s in the middle of Roarton now, and surrounded, and her stance is as determined as ever._

_This is a game, and Jem has to win._

 

***

 “I don’t really…like going outside,” she tells Eisley one meeting. They’re talking about activities at home. “I listen to music and read and window-shop online, mostly. Sometimes I sit with my family, but that’s about it.”

“Yeah, it sounded like that. What happens when you do go outside?”

“Well I do that for work. It’s…It’s, you know, this town is very…tight. I suppose everyone know at least one thing about me.”

“Knows what?” Eisley asks.

“That my brother offed himself and came back as PDS, that I’ve gone mad at between joining the HVF and now, that…I don’t know! That my life is bonkers, and that I’m no longer their hero.”

“It that…embarrassing? Threatening? What is it?”

“Neither? Both? I don’t know,” is her automatic response, before she remembers she needs to think. This is the point. Thinking stuff over. “Um, it’s…” she starts, then still doesn’t know what to say. Eisley waits.

Jem swallows.

What is it? She can say with certainty that it’s scary, but why is it scary?

“It’s scary,” she says, then thinks out loud: “Because…um, because I’m not who I used to be, and if they come at me, then what will I do? It’s scary because I’m not proud anymore. It’s scary because they know I’m not proud or capable or anything, I’m at their mercy. At this town’s mercy,” her words picks up a faster pace, “Everywhere! There are…reminders, there are faces that I don’t want to see, there are places that I don’t want to see, there are landscapes that I don’t want to see, I – “ she halts, swallows again. “Yeah…” she finishes.

“Triggers,” Eisley paints it clearly, professionally. “You’re avoiding triggers.”

“Yeah, I – I think.”

“What doesn’t trigger you, Jem?”

“Being here.”

 

***

 She gets back home with her earphones blasting _Action Cat,_ and so doesn’t heat it when her mother calls her name. By the time she looks up and notices her, taking of her earphones, the song playing distorted in the background, her mother is already shouting. “Jemima!”

“What?” she says. Her mother actually laughs.

“We’re going shopping, do you need anything?”

“I don’t know, get whatever.”

“I’ll try to find it,” her mum replies.

“You’re making dad jokes now, mum. Watch out.”

Her mother winks at her. She’s not sure what that means but it is terrifying.

She puts her earphones back on just in time for _No Shows_.

 

***

Kieren knocks on her door when she’s already in her pajamas.

“Just wanted to see what’s up,” he says.

“Aces,” she holds her thumbs up sardonically.

Kieren’s smile is small, but meaningful. “Can I?” he gestures at the bed where she sits.

“Sure.” she moves to make him space as he comes in.

He sits with his hands in his lap, looking at her. “You’re doing alright?”

“Yeah, making progress, go me.”

Kieren pulls gingerly at the ends of her hair as if saying, _Shut up, that’s good._

“You know,” he picks up Amy’s flower, lying atop of a pile made out of an outfit, “I think Amy was right. I miss the red. I mean, everything else might have been crap, but the hair was nice. Amy is often right…” his voice trails off. Jem notices the present tense but doesn’t address it.

There are undertones to this statement, but Jem just focuses on the literal. “Are you saying I should colour my hair again?”

“Yeah, lighten it up, sister.”

Jem falls back on the mattress. “Maybe I will,” she ponders to the ceiling.

“Alright,” Kieren stands. “You’re going to sleep?” He asks before leaving.

“Or something.”

Kieren chuckles. “Yeah.”

After he’s gone she slides up to rest her head on the pillows, gets her iPod, and puts on her goodnight playlist, which mostly consists of the indie-folk Kieren listens to.

She curls up on her side and closes her eyes.

_Everybody takes forever to fall asleep,_  
 _Everybody's got a life they don't want to keep_    
 _Everybody needs a prayer, and needs a friend_  
 _Everybody knows the world's about to end_

***

It’s five months into her therapy when Eisley brings up the idea of admission, two months of being permanently in the treatment centre, or more if they’ll decide on it together.

Jem raises her eyebrows at that, but then he says: “I think we can do better work here, where you’re away from Roarton.”

She tells him she needs to think about that. He gives her a leaflet and tells to really do that.

So she mulls over the idea while dying her hair a bright red again, the contemplation helping her ignore the sting of the bleacher and the way the dye itches.

She’ll be surrounded by a lot of people, but they won’t be the reasons she panics about being surrounded by a lot of other people. She’ll meet with Eisley bi-weekly, and have group therapy as well, which means a lot of talking, and talking with people who aren’t Eisley. She’ll work on hobbies, and doing stuff that aren’t entirely distractions, but a way of getting back to life. Getting back to life in a society, mainly.

She still hasn’t decided if it suits her when she checks the price.

She still hasn’t decided if it suits her when she talks about it with Kieren and her parents (Kieren beams at her hair, her parents show self-preserved satisfaction).

She still hasn’t decided if it suits her when she tells Eisley that she’d been thinking very seriously about it, nor when she tells him that yes, maybe it will work, let’s try that.

Because that’s the point.

She still hasn’t decided because she can’t know from where she stands right now.

Would be better off standing somewhere else, then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lyrics used in this chpater are from the songs:  
>  _Operator's Manual_ by _The Buzzcocks_  
>  _O Children_ by _Nick Cave & The Bed Seeds_  
>  _Abattoir Blues_ by _Nick Cave & The Bed Seeds_  
>  _Lean_ by _The National_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> specific warnings for this chapter: hospitalization (by choice), OCD, various mental illneses that are not the prime focus of the fic like: eating disorders, major depression, bi-polar disorder, and hints to parents abuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is, the third chapter! i'm truly sorry about the delay, it's been a busy month for my [beta](http://roartonofficial.tumblr.com).
> 
> also, the word Goyim is used in here, and it was brought to my attention that not everybody know what it means. It means people who aren't Jewish.

**Anxiety** [ang- **zahy** -i-tee]  
 _n. distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune._

**Anxious** [ **angk** -sh _uh_ -s,  **ang** -]  
 _adj. earnestly desirous; eager (usually followed by an infinitive or for)._

 

**PART III**

The day of packing is…it’s not a party, per-se, but there a lot of stuff thrown around and a lot of loud music and a lot of cake, and also a lot of tears, because apparently Jem not being home for two months is too much for her parents to take (like, yeah, it’s a big deal, it’s…yeah, but you know).

She needs to decide on clothes.She needs to decide on what’s coming with her to decorate her room. She needs to decide on all the things that are going to be her life for the next two months. That’s a lot. That’s _a lot._

Kieren, the expert in the house on packing your life for something (and then coming back with that life still in hand earlier than planned, but the packing part he knows well), is the most helpful. Mum just asks about stuff that there is _no way_ that Jem will actually take with her, and her dad sits on her bed and looks around the room as if Jem is leaving it forever.

Simon, who is there, looks worried. She wants to tell him Kieren’s the one who can be okay without her, not the other way around.

Kieren keeps throwing clothes out of her closet, and it surprises her how well he knows her. She folds them neatly into her suitcase, then goes to keep him from messing her totally clear organization of the closet.

There are a lot of _put-that-back-s_ and _nope-s_ and _do-you-really-need-that-s_ going around. Mum made her favourite cake. Simon says: “I think it could have been my favourite too,” and then pretends to eat it only when Jem looks at him. She suspects Kieren signed down his soul to him to get him acting like that. Dad makes a lot of uncomfortable jokes and insists that she will take that really warm and ugly coat that every kid has and takes up third of her suitcase. But she doesn’t need that much stuff anyway, so she does it.

Kieren says, “Think about your favourite things here.”

Jem says, quietly, only for him, “You’re my favourite thing here.”

Kieren reaches for his pocket, takes out a CD packed in a paper covering with a painting of the both of them. He puts it near the CD’s Jem took with her. “And don’t make a big deal. It’s going to be good. You’re going to be great there.”

She kisses his cheek.

It’s not a celebration of Jem needing hospitalization; it’s a celebration of Jem going her own way to get herself back together, she decides. She doesn’t care what the others think about today, this is what it means to her.

She’s feeling high on adrenaline and somewhere in the back of her head there’s a voice warning for the crash, saying that they have to sleep soon, have to wake up early to drive Jem there, and everything will be quiet and alone and dark, and she will face tomorrow all by herself, and her parents already met Eilsey, already saw the place, but they are going to embarrass her tomorrow in front of people she doesn’t even know, and Kieren can’t come because of the stupid Victus-controlled government ruling it illegal for PDS sufferers to be treated at the same place as non-PDS sufferers, and that apparently extends to visiting as well, so she won’t see him for the next two months, probably, unless she can visit here, maybe they’ll let her visit here because of the special circumstances, this is not prison, after all, and it’s good because she’s going to be away from the town that haunts her dreams and memories and every-day, but she’s going to be _away_ –

Jem breathes in and out, unwilling to let the high go just yet, even if it’s out of her reach. She’s going to reach just a little bit further because it was fun, she had fun, why does it always have to end like that, having fun.

They’re gonna go to sleep soon, and wake up early to drive Jem to Blackpool, and everything will be alright, she’s gonna get better, than come back here, and not live in a shell, and it’s gonna be alright.

She has everything she needs with her.

And everything else is going to be right here when she’s ready to come back.

She lays down her outfit for tomorrow: the one she chose after first shaving her hair.

 

***

Her room here is, of course, smaller than her room at home, which doesn’t matter much because she only got a few things with her here. It’s a blank page when she enters it, alone, per her request, Eisley – who’d come with her along with a nurse – leaving her at the door, and the nurse waiting outside to take her to fill forms, or whatever it is they’re going to do. Jem doesn’t want to think about the term ‘questioning’.

She sits on the bed and looks around. There is a mirror, a closet, a chair, and a desk. Everything is extremely white.

She doesn’t get to paint it, but she’s going to hang a couple of Kieren’s paintings and her favourite poster of Gerard Way with a feather boa. Originally it was supposed to be a gift for Kieren but she ended up just claiming it for herself. Kieren doesn’t have any space on his walls anyway; paintings are hanged with their corners covering other paintings and canvases are leaning diagonally on any lower point that isn’t covered by furniture.

She leaves her suitcase there – she will unpack later – and goes with the nurse to do the whatever she needs to do to be officially admitted.

There are a lot of questions; about nutrition, about medication, about who is and isn’t permitted to contact her there, and come visit (Kieren, Kieren is permitted to come visit, by her, why does Victus’ say on this topic even matters).

The nurse is nice, has a calm and lovely voice and a name that Jem can’t remember, because suddenly there are a lot of names to remember. Nurses, Doctors, therapists. She’s not going to be in direct contact with all of them but they are introduced to her as they walk by while nurse whatsername accompanies her to her room. Eisley is gone, probably to a session, and Jem is sheepishly looking around at other people walking along, going about their day, and avoiding eye contact just like her.

She desperately wants to get to her room and hang her stuff, unpack her suitcase and personalize her closet, and just lie for a couple of hours on the bed while listening to Kieren’s CD. This is precisely the reason she kept her old CD player.

Aside from meeting with Eisley to go over her schedule for the next two months later, she doesn’t have anything to do now. She doesn’t want to get to know anybody, she doesn’t want to see the place, she just wants some peace and quiet and alone time to think over this decision.

At any moment, she was told, she can decide to get out. She is not in a situation whereas she needs to be committed here.

It’s her choice.

It’s her life.

She is in control.

*** 

There will be a Doctor monitoring her physical well being, a Psychiatrist to see if she needs any medication, and an array of activities from arts and crafts to slam poetry. That’s in addition to meeting Eilsey three times a week and group therapy once a week. There are a lot of other optional groups she can go to, but she’s too buzzed to think about it right now.

She will also learn more about PTSD, coping mechanisms, how to de-trigger yourself, etc.

This should be a stress free zone, but her days should still be full.

 

***

Jem spends the first couple of days reading in her room. She goes out to eat, yes, and to use the toilets, and showers once, but she’s preoccupied by _Special Topics in Calamity Physics_ , sends herself into a world of mystery and adolescence, far far from where she is.

 

***

The first group therapy session is four days into her admission, and Jem had been going through it in her head since she knew she would be going to one.

“I’m Jem Walker,” she says to the mirror before leaving her room, and she still doesn’t know exactly what it means, but by now she knows it means that she can at least do that.

 There is a circle of plastic chairs, and seven people other than her, not including their guide, who will be, as his title suggests, guiding them, and not doing a lot of talking beyond that. This is different from her private therapy sessions in a lot of ways, but the main one is, there are a lot of people introducing themselves, and all of them are about to be people who know more about Jem Walker than most people. Probably. If this goes well.

She says nothing but her name, waving to all the people saying hello to her. Since most of the people here are new, this is mainly an introduction session, get to know each other sort of thing.

Mary-Anne had been here for nearly eight months. She talks more freely then the others, but you can see something is tolling on her.

There’s a guy names Michael with a tattoo of a fox hunting a hound on his forearm, and Jem smiles to herself, tries to hide it, but he notices.

There’s a guy named Rosenberg. “Well, technically that’s my surname. But nobody pronounces Shmuel right, so I go by Rosenberg.”

“That’s not as easy on the tongue as you think it is,” Jem says, while what she means is: I don’t like people calling me by my actual name as well.

“Well, you Goyim should work your throats better,” he says, and his leg is jumping in a rhythm of four, and his fingers are drumming on his knee in a rhythm of two. But people laugh, and he winks at Jem like he made a joke, then winks again with the other eye like he has a tick, and it doesn’t seem like he snapped at her.

They talk about the experience of being here/being new here, and Jem mainly listens to get information out of it.

They talk about their experiences with mental illness, which is a term Jem still feels uncomfortable with.

It’s a very mixed group, but she gets the sense they share a lot in common.

 

***

“You think Lisa’s death is your fault.”

“Obviously.”

“But if your brother would have died, it would have been your fault as well.”

“Yes.”

“There’s no way out it, then?”

“No.”

“You’re harsh on yourself.”

“I should be.”

“In your story, it seems like Lisa was already dead when you found her.”

“I – I think. What does it have to do with anything?”

“Because I don’t think many people would have had the guts to not shoot two Rabids who just killed their best friend. They would have lived their lives regretting it, probably, but you are regretting a thing that was out of your hands.”

“I heard screaming, and I pulled my guns out, taking a stance, and went to see what’s happening…”

 

***

In the world of _Special Topics In Calamity Physics,_ you get to make up your mind about who’s at fault for the atrocities that happened.

 

***

The first person she talks to is named Trevor. Or rather, he’s the first person to talk to her. She sits alone in the dining hall, a place that is much like the cafeteria at school, but with less whispering and looking at other people purposefully. She’s munching on mental hospital food that is not as bad as you might expect, and he approaches her, slowly, like a man approaching an animal you’re not sure wants you near it.

Jem’s not sure she wants him near her, but she makes an effort to not look intimidating, which is also a thing that differs from the school cafeteria.

“Hi, Jem,” he says, and she stares at him with raised eyebrows until she remembers him from the group therapy. “Sorry, didn’t mean to freak you out,” he immediately clarifies. “I just – I know you. Not from group. Um, I’m not sure – “

“You’re from Roarton?” she cuts him off. It’s not that everybody in the town knows absolutely everybody else in the town, it’s that it is confusing when you don’t somebody else from the town.

“No, I’m. Um. HVF. I – I kind of heard about you.”

Jem grips her fork in an iron-tight grip. She doesn’t want to lash out, not here, not on him, but that’s – that’s unfair, to come to her like that, it’s completely unfair, and unexpected, she didn’t expect to –

“I don’t want to talk about that.” She says flatly.

He looks like a fox caught in the headlights. “I know. Me neither. At least, not now, I just thought, we might – It might be nice to – you know.”

She doesn’t know. But she _does_ know what a person looking for a friend looks like. She says: “Do you want to sit down?”

He nods.

They continue eating in silence.

It turns out he’s kind of her neighbor.

 

*** 

“What would you like to talk about today?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, I’m kind of…It’s all confusing.”

“Do you want to talk about that?”

“Confusion?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe.”

 

***

Her psychiatrist decides to not give her meds at the moment, which Jem is totally fine with.

Talking with him is excruciating at best. It’s a lot of private question she’s used to talking about only with Eisley, and a lot of questions she doesn’t get what they has to do with anything, and not much of a flowing conversation.

He says that she doesn’t seem to need the pills’ help, and he doesn’t want to get her too drowsy on anti anxiety medication, but they’ll see on the next meeting if something had changed, and if she wants him to do something else.

Jem goes to her room afterwards, too exhausted to communicate with anybody else, and listens to Kieren’s playlist again, hugging her pillow that’s covered in her favourite pillow case and still smells like home.

Kieren had put _Garbage_ in to make Jem laugh.

_When I grow up_  
 _I'll be stable_    
 _When I grow up_    
 _I'll turn the tables_

It kinda works.

 

*** 

Mum and Dad come and visit. She knows it won’t happen a lot, what with the petrol prices and everything, but they probably wanted to do that now, when she’s in a completely new place alone, at least.

She hugged them each separately for a long time, her mother patting her hair, her father holding her up from the floor.

They sit in her room, looking awkward on the small bed, and her mum says: “Looks like you’ve settled in quite nicely.”

Jem is sitting on the floor, back leaning on the wall, playing with her wristband. It still feels strange and like it doesn’t belong there.

“Yeah,” she says.

“And how are the people?” her dad asks.

“I don’t know?” she says.

Her dad’s smile is a thin line of worry.

Something is missing.

“Before I forget,” her mother jumps slightly. Jem’s fist clenches and she looks away as if she’s examining Kieren’s drawing. “Brought you this.”

Her mother takes out a Tupperware from her purse. “We made you your favourite chocolate chips cookies,” she stretches the ‘we’ part of it.

Jem shifts her gaze back to them, staring at them for a moment. Next thing she knows she’s swirling at them with open arms.

“Thanks!” she calls, opens the Tupperware to eat one, or a couple, or a few.

She nudges them apart, sits between them.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she decides to share. She gets the feeling it doesn’t seem like it, but she does. Maybe it’s not the best of days for a visit, and maybe that’s the point of a visit, and maybe they all know there is someone at home who wants to be here but can’t, and maybe a lot of stuff are overshadowing this, but she is glad they’re here.

They both wrap an arm around her, and it makes her feel secured, and like she doesn’t want them to leave.

 

***

“Maybe this was a mistake, maybe I need my family, maybe I need to be home, maybe – maybe it’s all a mistake.”

“The first days are hard. Maybe you do, but what if you’ll find out that you don’t?”

 

***

She goes to arts and crafts or whatever bullshit name they gave it mainly to see what Kieren finds so emotionally satisfying about art, and Trevor comes with her because it sounds nice to him.

It’s sort of a work-shop. There is, of course, the responsible grown up there to keep an eye on them, but aside from that there are no instructions.

Her and Trevor pick a sit, and he gets to work while Jem looks around at everybody else working. She thinks about Kieren, drawing her, drawing mum and dad, drawing Rick, drawing everything. His room is full of Simon at the moment. He fixates on things, like he can’t let them go and that’s the only way to channel it. She gets that, at least.

So she tries.

She takes the Platsticine because she remembers it from being a kid. She spends half an hour making abstract shapes before she gets bored out of her mind and declares to Trevor, “This is stupid.”

Trevor lifts his head from his painting that she can’t see, looks like he dosed off for the past time, and says, “You’re stupid.” Then laughs at his own joke.

Jem rolls her eyes. “Can I see?” she asks.

Trevor hesitates. Then, he apparently decides to go all in. He turns the painting so she can look at it.

It’s not something specific to Jem’s eyes. Kieren draws concrete shapes out of his feelings, he draws stuff that Jem understands, like he communicates more coherently in that way. This is, to Jem, what Chinese is to Jem.

She spends two minutes looking at it, tilts her head from side to side, then says, “I don’t think art is for me.”

Trevor’s smile is weak. “I can explain. If you want to hear, I mean.”

Jem…she doesn’t know. She just don’t want to let him down. “Yeah. Can we go somewhere else though? I’m getting a headache from all the fumes.”

“I’ll finish here and meet you outside.” His smile is slightly less weak now.

“I’ll just have some quality time with my iPod then.”

 

***

Trevor talks about his past in the same manner Jem talks about hers. That’s when she gets the painting, all the red smears, all the black stains, and the white smudges. These are colours she can see in her mind, sometimes.

He talks about graveyards and Jem can see white crosses instead of headstones.

He talks about killing in the same sinful way it is thought of in Jem’s mind.

They talk for about two hours, about the HVF in a way she hadn’t talked about it since Gary, but it doesn’t feel like it’s the only thing that they can talk about, as it was with Gary.

He also doesn’t look like Gary does when he talks about the HVF. He looks like Jem does, like missing a purpose you had the sent all your other purposes to hell.

He’s not a mirror of hers, but it’s like reading a relatable book. So it’s that moment where Jem decides that no matter what she feels in the days to come, she’s going to stay here the two months they decided upon.

They’re cut off by Trevor saying he’s going to be late to therapy and running off. Jem strides along to go to some lecture-type activity about PTSD where everybody are welcomed to ask questions and talk and nobody knows what they’re doing just like her.

 

***

Apparently, Trevor has some cards with him.

They spend the night playing poker (Trevor teaches her the rules, and says his old commander taught him to play during a night patrol), and the next day sleeping in.

She wakes up lopsided, but the good sort of lopsided, only to go see Eisley.

 

*** 

The second group session goes with a little more talking on Jem’s side. It goes with a little more talking on everybody’s side.

Bob is the name of their guide, and he asks them directive questions, addresses whoever he feels is left outside of the conversation.Stuff like, _And what about you, Jem? What brought you here?_

They are all here by their own choice, but not all for the same reasons, or under the same circumstances, or for the same amount of time.

Mary-Anne was supposed to be released by now, but as they got closer and closer to her release date she became more and more afraid she would hurt herself, and so she is staying for an undefined amount of time now.

Trevor came here during a particularly vivid flashback and signed in for half a year. A flashback that he does not talk about, and here for a reason that he does not talk about.

Rosenberg had arrived bruised after a protest here instead of to a general hospital, and was needed to be sent to a doctor before his admission. He talks about being scared that the doctor is going to put him back in the wrong order. That everything will be _uneven._ He stretches the word uneven, then touches every single body part he has.

Ashan is a boy with Bi-polar disorder who came here trying to explain himself during a psychotic manic episode. He’s currently checking doses of mood stabilizers that will suit him, but he’s still frantic when he talk, cuts himself off a lot, and gets incredibly irritated when somebody else cuts him off.

Rose had been here for three months already, and when Jem talks about Kieren, she looks at her with something that reminds Jem of Charlotte. She says her mother died and that’s the problem, but doesn’t say more than that.

Jem can guess though.

Because Rosenberg had been beaten by a cop during a protest for the rights of PDS sufferers, and Michael says his mother came back to life but doesn’t say what about it bothers him, and Marry-Anne’s best friend here was dismissed because she was PDS, and a girl named Tamra speaks of how she felt Rabid, like she just needs something to make her control it, because they survive with no food at all, and Ashan brought a picture of him with his ex-girlfriend who died four years ago.

So Jem can guess, not the specifics, but what it has to do with.

Because she tells Kieren on the phone it’s like the world was cut off after he had came back from the dead, separated at the day it had happened from what was before in a way that only leaves a single thread hanging between the two parts, and she hears him shaking, and she remembers him crying on the floor of him room, and she remembers herself hugging him, and telling him he scars her sometimes.

Because you’d have to be daft not to see the world had gone with the tide, and trying to make people believe it should be back to how it was before is lying to their faces about the possibility of that happening.

Because when Rose asks her in tears how would _she_ feel about that if they’d burned her brother’s corpse, Jem’s only response is to think: _I nearly made them do it_ , and then shut up.

Rosenberg doesn’t shut up.”You know,” _you know,_ pause. “it’s not about our personal stories, we all have our personal stories, but this is about condemning people because they make you feel uncomfortable. What if you’re mother did come back, and people would still be the same?”

“Okay, we’re heading into a more political talk here,” Bob says.

“But emotions and the political are strictly connected,” Mary-Anne says. “You can’t make us separate them.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

Jem slides lower in her chair.

 

*** 

“You know, maybe if I haven’t…maybe if I haven’t let it get to me, what Charlotte said…But I still do.”

“Why? Do you think she was right?”

“Yeah! I’ve ruined hundreds of lives, _and_ I’m a frightened little rabbit, aren’t I? What worth was it, then? What worth am I, then?”

“But look at you! You know exactly what you’ve done, and you’re here. Isn’t that something?”

“Sometimes I think if Kieren hadn’t…die, what if I haven’t joined the HVF? And I don’t want to blame him, that’s – that’s not his fault, but what if that hadn’t happened, where would I be right now?”

“It’s alright to show your anger, Jem. And since we can’t know the answer to that question, let me ask you: why did you join the HVF?”

“Because we were left all alone, to our own devices and that was – that was sensible, at the time.”

“We cannot change what was at the time, and sometimes emotions are sensible. So you have joined the HVF because you felt alone and unprotected – you _were_ alone and unprotected, and you have helped others not be the same. Don’t gloss over that, Jem.”

“I’m not, I’m just – “

“That past is out of our control, that is what bothers you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“And so you know exactly what you’ve done, and you’re here, and that’s something.”

 

*** 

In books, everything unravels itself.

In life, everything needs to be raveled.

That’s what Jem has music for.

 

***

Trevor is a goof, when he’s not too scared to be one. Much like Jem, it’s an issue of trust. Unlike Jem, he’s not an aggressive prick when he thinks you’re not trustworthy, merely uncomfortable.

This brings to other people joining them in during lunch, and sometimes dinner. Breakfast is a quiet, usually more empty time at the dining hall. Jem tends to mostly grunt at Trevor then, and Trevor tends to mimic her. Goof.

(He’s bulkier than her; training actually showing on him. Taller and broader, too. Jem’s only way to show people how dangerous she is is to darken her clothes and strike a violent pose. She supposes that makes all the difference.)

But there this lunch, today, after another session of arts and crafts that Jem went to with Trevor because she felt it wouldn’t be a good day to be alone. Trevor is talkative more than usual, and there are three other people sitting at their table; Michael, Ashan, and Mary-Anne.

They’re talking about last evening’s slam poetry session which Jem did not attend, so she mainly sits, plays with her salad, and doesn’t pay much attention; glossing over a page that describes the activities offered with the dates they will be happening at.

_Football Match_ it says. Jem hasn’t played since she was, like, fourteen.

“You know with that one about substance abuse, I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and – “

_Field trip to the beach nearby_ it says. Jem never spent more than five minutes on a beach. Plus it’s too cold to get in the water, so what’s the point.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, you’re talking about, wait, that, are we talking about the same one – “

_Karaoke party_ it says. What the actual fuck.

“Hey, Jem,” Michael’s voice is suddenly addressing her. It’s weird she can hear it, since it’s usually so hushed the surroundings need to be in complete silence and full concentration to be able to do that. “I think you should come next time, you might enjoy it.” He flexes his arm, the one with the tattoo, like it’s his argument for it.

Jem blinks a couple of times, then says: “Yeah, alright.” She’s not sure if she means it or not.

That’s when Rosenberg appears out of nowhere. “Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello,” he points at them like he’s counting, then he looks around, confused, and then: “and hello to me too.”

He sits down next to Jem, which is the only available sit since she kind of drawn apart from them when they started talking about slam poetry.

“Hi,” she says, gently, and the rest of the group follows with their greetings. He nods his head to all of them twice, then he chunks a piece of bread in his mouth. “What are we on about?”

“Slam poetry,” Mary-Anne chips.

“Oh, okay,” Rosenberg says, and then turns to Jem as they keep on talking. He proffers her a hand. “Don’t think we’ve been formally introduced,” he tells her.

They have, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Her face crinkles into an amused expression. “I think we have, but okay.” She takes his hand.

“Don’t count that,” he says as they shake them. And then, as they release each other: “Would you please shake my other hand as well?” He grimaces, his other hand twitching, so Jem does. “Thanks,” he tells her.

“No need.”

“Am I funny?” he suddenly blurts.

“Sometimes,” Jem’s crinkles grow deeper.

“That’s good. You too. But is this funny, not when I’m actually trying to be funny?”

“Am I funny not when I’m actually trying to be funny?”

“Not really. That’s scary.”

“Then here you have it.”

“Am I scary?”

“Not as far as I can tell.”

“Well, you’re no indication.” He turns back to the group. “Am I scary?” he asks them.

They pause their discussion (and really, how much longer can their conversation go on?). “Only when you go on political rants, mate,” Ashan says. They hum their agreements.

“Good, good.”

 

***

“You look good,” Eisley tells her. The corner of her lip quirks up coyly. She didn’t expect that. “Acclimation going well?”

“It’s fine.”

“That’s good. What do you want to talk about today?”

It’s a story time kind of day.

 

*** 

Her doctor checks her reflexes, her ears, her throat, her eyes. He asks her the usual questions one gets asked when going to the family doctor, and then fills in some forms and tells her she can go.

She assumes everything’s fine.

 

*** 

Sometimes missing Kieren is like being ten and climbing up a tree without him, but not looking down and knowing that he’s there.

Sometimes missing Kieren is like being six and go to school for the first time but knowing that when you’ll come rushing home with your backpack you’ll eat lunch with him.

They talk on the phone but both of them don’t like conversations where they can’t see each other.

Sometimes missing Kieren is like knowing there is nothing you can do about getting up tomorrow morning.

 

*** 

It’s another poker night with Trevor.

They sit in the mostly empty entertainment room (which Jem refers to as the living room, because it has a telly in it and any other name would be stupid), trying not to make too much noise.

“You’re coming to the Football match? It’s a bus ride, like a school field trip, should be fun.”

“Nah,” Jem says, debating her bet. If the next card will be a ten of hearts she can get something out of this, or she can bluff. She looks up at Trevor. He’s poised, damn him.

“Why not? Me and and Tamra are playing. She’s a hell of a sports girl, that one. You can cheer us up.”

“I’m _not_ a cheerleader, Trev.”

He laughs, then says: “Come on, cheerleader, place your bet.”

“I’m gonna go if you call me that one more time, and I won’t talk to you until you stop.” He doesn’t know that he’s the only person she talks to, so that’s a real threat. Or at least, it should be.

He fakes a shiver. “Scary, brrr.”

“Shut up.” She rolls her eyes. She decides to go all in, if only to either win or lose this already.

Trevor calls her, then unfolds the last card. It’s not a ten of hearts.

Jem doesn’t make a noise; they’re gonna play it till the end.

“Shall we see who’s the big winner of the night?” Trevor asks, wriggling his eyebrows.

(It’s important to note that they are betting on plastic chips they salvaged from a cabinet in this room, since neither one of them actually want to put something on the line, and this is just a pass time activity.)

Jem lays her cards down over dramatically, and the thing that follows is Trevor whisper-shouting “YES”, falling supinely on the carpeted floor, cards in the hand facing up. She lost to a bloody pair of sevens.

“Prick,” she tells him, lying down and leaving all the cards in a mess between them.

“Years of training.”

“While we actually did our job.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t have dead nights.”

“Oh, there were plenty of dead nights.”

A silence falls. It makes Jem choke down the tears clotting up in her throat. Sometimes, with Trevor, they don’t mean to but it gets very serious all of the sudden.

“Sorry,” Trevor whispers. He knows Jem doesn’t like it.

She inhales sharply, and then: “That’s fine, I didn’t mind the dead nights.”

“What did you mind?”

“That I had a friend and now I don’t. That I’m scared of my own brother sometimes. That the things that traumatize me are the things that gave me courage to live. That I’ve ruined families. That I – That I’ve come around too late. That I was angry. That – “

She doesn’t notice her rapid breath until Trevor says, “Hey, it’s fine,” squeezing her hand, then letting go and taking his hand back.

“Not really, I’m here.”

“Yeah, but we’re all here. You know I – I don’t talk a lot, about why I’m here. You probably think it’s PTSD from being in the HVF, like, in general. But I – I had a friend, my best friend, he was in and out of here a lot, and then he drove drunk, crushed, died on the spot. That one in 09, and I buried him, and then I buried him again, with my own two hands.” He’s quietly sobbing by this point, vibrating in a way that Jem can feel even not touching him, and Jem doesn’t know what to say to that. She’s not sure there’s something to say to that, like there’s nothing to say to her about her stories. She’s not sure Trevor wants her to say anything. So instead, she reaches for his hand, squeezes, then lets go and takes her hand back. Trevor’s breathing haphazardly and she wonders for a moment if she should call some nurse, doctor, anybody. But Trevor says between sobs: “Thank you,” And he turns to his side to look at her, curled like a baby.

Jem turns to face him, and they say nothing for what feels like ages, Trevor slowly growing calmer.

They nearly fall asleep like that when someone sits down next to them. “What are you doing here?” It’s Rosenberg.

“Playing cards,” Trevor says tiredly. “What are you doing here?”

“Not playing cards. I hate cards.”

Jem looks at him, upside down, and he sounds alright, but his hand is playing with his wristband like Jem’s does when she’s thinking about stuff she doesn’t want to think about.

“Are you going to the football match?” she asks. She’s calm in a way she hadn’t been for a long while, and that’s uneasy and easy all at once.

“Don’t know. Don’t think so.”

Trevor sits upright, like he’s all awake now. “Come on, mate, _someone’s_ gotta cheer me up. I’m gonna botch it all at this rate.”

“Rose’s going. She’s quite enthusiastic about the signs she’s making.”

Jem snorts. It’s not that she hates Rose, is that Rose is a bad reminder of a lot of bad things.

Trevor, on the other hand, is excited by that.

“Are you going?” Rosenberg asks her.

“Nah,” she says again.

“Then I won’t be left behind all alone.”

His smile is weird lopsided. Jem thinks she might be too tired right now if his face is that blurry, and if she finds it kind of amusing.

“Yeah. I think I’m going to sleep now.” She rubs her face, pushes herself up.

“Sleep tight,” Trevor tells her.

“Night,” Rosenberg says.

Jem stumbles to her room. It might be the best kind of tired she’d ever been.

 

***

In group today, Rosenberg sits next to her. “Good morning,” he says.

“Morning,” she replies.

“Did you know today is the one month anniversary of me taking a beating and getting here?” he asks, so casual, so unfazed.

Jem pauses. Then she decides to not make it more serious than he’d like this to be. “Did they make a cake for that?”

“They should, so I can shove it in that cop’s face.”

“Really hard?” she asks, looking at him intensely.

“The hardest.” he replies, looking back.

“Good.”

Then the rest of the group fills the room.

 

***

Her parents say they’ll come and visit again in three weeks time. They’ve managed to clear a whole day off for that, and maybe they can do a day out in Blackpool, if that’s a thing that’s possible, because it seems like a nice place, they can do some lunch together, and some shopping, maybe, if Jem would like that. Jem would. She says she’ll ask if they can give her a pass for a day out. She doesn’t tell them she’s going to talk to Eisley about visiting home to see Kieren, because that feels too private.

So checks out everything she needs to before meeting Eisley, which isn’t a lot because all of the forms will be filled closer to the date, and then tells him everything about it.

They have more time to talk about anything Jem wants now, not just what she calls her Work Out Plan, so they don’t make it quick. She tells him about the last time her and her parents had a day out like that, when she was thirteen and they went to a flea market, before everything went to shit, and she feels elevated now, thinking about it.

But then she needs to cut it off, because her question is more important. “I was also thinking about, like, going for a day to Roarton. To see Kieren, that is. He can’t come here, you know, with being PDS and all.” She realizes she phrased it a bit like an accusation, but maybe that’ll help her case. Maybe Eisley will understand better that way. He can’t forbid her from doing anything, not anything like that, but it’ll be easier with his approval, for her.

“I…I’m sorry, Jem, but I don’t think that’s a good idea,” is his disappointing first words. “But tell me more about it, why do you want to go?”

“Because I miss him? A lot?”

“Have you thought about the consequences that might come with going there now?”

“Not really,” she admits. “I kind of just…thought about Kieren.”

“The thing is, we’re doing great work here, and I’m afraid it’ll be a setback, to go back there before you’re ready.”

Jem spends a few minutes aggressively shutting up. She’s not angry, precisely, but she is feeling let down, and she wants him to know that. It’s partly the fact he doesn’t think she’s ready, and partly the fact that she really is probably not ready, and then there’s some bubbling annoyance at this whole institution, and at Vctus, and at Eisley himself, for being part of it. She’s about to open her mouth to let some of this out when Eisley queries:

“Why are you asking me?”

“I...I don’t know.”

“But you do know you don’t need my permission.”

“Yes.”

“So why are you asking?”

Jem thinks it over. “I suppose, because of what you just said.”

“Let’s think it through, then. What might happen when you go there?”

 

***

So she doesn’t. She’s glad she didn’t tell Kieren about this idea beforehand, because that’ll be a double level of all her emotions regarding the fact that she can, but she isn’t going to do that, and she doesn’t want to admit to him that she in incapable of coming to Roarton at the moment, not without falling so far backwards she won’t see the place she stands in now.

 

***

It’s the day of the football match, and it’s a special day here, after all the fuss of too many people going on the bus to a school field trip, as Trevor put it. It’s nearly completely empty, save from some people who decided to not go and nurses and doctors. She passes a few faces she recognizes and waves hello as she wonders the corridors.

She has a check up with her doctor today, but aside from that, and since there are very few other activities besides the football match happening, she’s completely free and left to her own devices. She’s not sure that’s the right time for that, so instead of sitting doing nothing in particular, she decides to explore the place.

She doesn’t grasp how big it is until she reaches an inner garden. There are patches of grass with trees growing out of them, and flowers neatly arranged in a square or round form around them. There are brick roads between the patches, and a pool with gold fishes, probably a frog or two by the sound of it. It’s a text-book mental hospital garden.

She picks a corner, then sits on a bench there. She thinks, if people were allowed to smoke here, this garden would have been flourishing with activity. It’s actually kind of waste, but matches perfectly what Jem wanted to do.

She takes out a writing pad out of the pocket of her coat. Eisley gave it to her; they have decided she is going to write down all the possibilities of bad things that go through her head when she thinks about Roarton, and they will go over it together. She first has to deal with her home to live her life, and then with everything else.

She starts.

It’s already getting too long for writing inside her head. But the thing about writing stuff down is that they become less vague, and though it’s partially a struggle to deal with actual stuff, it’s also easier to deal with actual stuff rather than the uncertainty inside your head.

Jem plays with Amy’s flower as she writes. It’s funny; it’s kind of a stress controller nowadays, but actually she started wearing the ornaments just to cheer Kieren up that one day.  It makes Jem think that, if she was any less of an idiot, if the world in general was not as stupid as it is, they could have been friends, because Amy was smart enough to know her even when Jem was the biggest arsehole on the planet. Which is basically how every friendship of Jem’s starts.

She’s busy mulling over Roarton and its residents, pen left hanging in her hand, when someone startles her by sitting at her side. She jumps a little to the far side, but when she looks up its Rosenberg, and she calms down.

“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to – just wanted to say hi.”

Jem shuts her pad, pockets it. “Hi.” she replies, looking at him. He isn’t as twitchy as he is usually; probably a good day for him as well. Jem runs a hand through her hair, waiting for him to say what he wants to.

“Do you want to hang out? I’m bored. And I mean, it’s fine if you don’t, just thought I’d check, why not, it can be cool.”

“Yeah,” she says. She knows by now that interrupting him doesn’t do any good. He’ll say what he has in mind come rain or come shine. “Why not,” she adds with a shrug and a small smile.

Rosenberg relaxes in his seat and leans back on the bench, looks straight ahead, legs kicking the ground each one at its turn.

She doesn’t mind, really. She stopped actually being productive long moments ago, and Rosenberg isn’t bad. But the thing is, they never actually set and were alone like this, she never actually done it with anybody but Trevor. So it’s like the first days with Trevor all over again, except none of them has Trevor’s talent to not be awkward.

So it’s silence, and it’s the sound of the water from the fountain, and Rosenberg’s feet kicking the ground, and –

“Do you want gum?” Rosenberg asks, out of the blue, and proffers her some. It’s nothing special, just mint.

Jem looks at him questioningly. He takes that as a no. “Alright,” he says, and pops one in his own mouth. “They say it reduces stress,” he mumbles through chewing it. Then he pops another one in his mouth.

“Have you ever checked this theory?” she asks, doubtful.

Rosenberg shakes his head. “Can’t really check myself versus myself, can I?”

“No, doesn’t really work.”

“Nope.”

There’s a beat, and then a sigh, and then Jem says, “Fine, give me one.”

Rosenberg beams. He really does get excited by the most ridiculous things. He also gets passionate about the most ridiculous things. You never know with him whether it’s going to be activism or the beauty of the design of this sandwich that got him going.

Jem chews on the gum thoughtfully. She doesn’t think that changes anything, but maybe that’s because she’s focused on that. “I don’t know,” she eventually admits.

“Whatever,” Rosenberg shrugs. “Doesn’t actually matter.”

They’re back to silence, except this time there are also the sounds of chewing gum. That’s…not an improvement as much as it is a change. Which is something as well. Probably. Jem decides to sit it out; that’s the best way to manage these situations, she’d found, without starting any shit, which she doesn’t want to do now, because Rosenberg in evidently a nice bloke.

So she lets the white noise wash over her, closes her eyes and throws her head back, but leans closer to Rosenberg to let him know it’s alright. Soon enough, it’s a more comfortable silence than it was before, Jem not feeling like she has to say something but not knowing what. Soon enough, she can feel Rosenberg leaning towards her as well, probably doing the same, and by the time they speak again, she has no idea how much time had passed.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Rosenberg’s voice makes her open her eyes, but her neck is still stretched, and the sun hits them hard, and she needs to shield herself with her hand. She thinks: _the only person I’ve ever said yes to is Lisa._ She thinks: _but that’s why I’m here, innit?_

She says, “Sure,” trying not to let on the growing gloom inside of her chest. She lifts her legs up to the bench and turns to her side, but she doesn’t dare look at him, instead playing with her shoelaces and staring at her own hands.

“If somebody wasn’t what you’d thought they are, I mean, what it seems that they are, how would you react?”

“That’s…a tough one.” And not what she expected at all. She thought he’s probably going to ask about something in her past, about why she acts the way she does, about…something that isn’t a philosophical idea of the world. “Why are you asking?” she asks, because she wants to understand better, and because if he gets to ask her a question she deserves to know why, and because she doesn’t know how to answer, so. Stalling it is.

“Cuz I trust your judgment,” he says, simple and direct.

It’s not an answer, but another thing that she did not expect at all. “You do?” she wonders out loud, confused. Rosenberg seems like the furthest person from somebody who will ever trust Jem’s judgment. He seems too idealistic for that. He seems like one who’ll scoff over her if he ever heard her deepest guarded stories. Maybe that’s the question. Maybe he suspects something about Jem. Maybe –

“I do. You…you know who you are.”

“I really don’t.”

“Yes you do, look at you! You’re Jem Walker. And I’m – “ He gets quiet all of a sudden. “I go by my last name just because people are making a mess of my private one. I hide the marks the cop left on me because I’m not sure anymore that I was supposed to be there. And I – I don’t know what I am.”

Jem raises her head. Now it’s Rosenberg’s turn to not look at her. She has no clue why he decided to confine in her, it makes no fucking sense, they barely talk to each other. So maybe he does trust her judgment. Maybe it’s not a test. Maybe it’s genuine question about himself, and not about Jem. “I don’t know,” she says softly. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“On what – On whether they were hiding something from me purposefully, lying, or…or scared to tell me a truth about themselves. There’s a difference.”

“How’s that? It’s still lying.”

“Yes, but one is a means to an end and the other is…method acting.”

Rosenberg nods, not like he agrees, but like he understands. “So I assume, if it’s lying you’re talking about – “

“Badly.”

“And method acting…”

“I’ll – I think I’ll – I – I don’t really know. I never thought about that.”

“But not badly?”

“Probably not.”

He nods again.

They fall back so silence, and sit there until is starts to get dark, and all of the other inpatients come back from their field trip, and the hum of life is slowly slithering into the garden.

 

***

Rosenberg is a slim boy with features that can look just the same as your own if you look from one angle and completely unrecognizable if you look from a different one. He has a wristband on both his hands, and he wears clothes provided by the hospital even though she knows he has private artificial here with him. She knew he was Jewish, but she didn’t know he participated in anything religious until she searches for him one Saturday and is informed by a nurse he’s at the synagogue. He doesn’t wear a Kipa, and doesn’t talk about Judaism in the same way that others here talk about Christianity, and she knows sometimes he uses Yiddish words he’ll be happy to translate for you, but not in front of anybody.

He has dark brown curly hair that rests on his shoulders, and dark brown eyes that look wide open at everything around him like he’s still seeing the world for the first time.

He’s clean shaven and always smells like soap and shampoo.

Jem waves at him from across the room and he comes to sit next to her. It’s a ritual by now; Jem always gets earlier to the dining hall, and catches a table with Trevor, who, when Rosenberg spots them and comes jagging, says he’s truly gutted she’ll replace him like that, and bumps his shoulder to hers, and then Jem says he’s the one who abandoned her to go play football and bumps her shoulder back until they’re roughhousing in their seats, and when Rosenberg sits down he greets them with: “Kinderlach.”

That means children.

 

***

Her Psychiatrist asks the same questions, mainly, and decides upon the same: no medication.

She struggles to go to the meetings with Eisley now. It’s easier when you feel like you’ve been pushed to the floor and can’t get up, but when you feel like you’ve gotten up, it feels unnecessary and like there are other stuff you could have been doing at this hour.

There’s a day she over sleeps and misses a meeting, and a nurse comes to check on her, but everything’s fine, that’s the point. She feels fine.

There is no hell raised, but at the next session they spend half an hour talking about why Jem didn’t make it, and Jem feels agitated, she feels like she owns him no explanation, until it bursts out all at once, and then she’s crying.

She hadn’t cried in a long while.

It’s not a nice feeling.

She spends two full days by herself afterwards, and wonders if she _should_ ask for medication, but the problem was not that she was feeling too low so what help would that be.

She spends a meeting with Eisley in complete silence.

She wonders how the hell she’d gotten here after such a long way upwards.

 

*** 

“One bad day doesn’t mean you’re back where you started, just like one good day doesn’t mean you are all magically out of where you started. It’s like chutes and ladders, sometimes.”

“But I really thought…I had _fun,_ and I felt _good._ That’s gotta mean something.”

“It does! It means you’re also climbing. But climbing can still be hard.”

“That’s really not what I wanted it to be.”

“Is it? Really? Because I recall one Jem Walker telling me she feels right here.”

“Can we do another exposure thing?”

“We can do whatever you want to do.”

Exposures are the worst. Eisley triggers her, carefully, sets her mind back to where it was in some of the moments she’s scared of. But she needs it, to learn to deal with Roarton. And it’s not as bad as it was the first time already; she’s controlling it better now.

It’s still a pain in the arse.

 

***

Her parents come on a Friday. She carefully picks her clothes for her first time out in ages, and carefully arranges her hair for her parents, and carefully hides her wristband under a ratty jumper. Her leather coat feels heavy after weeks of not wearing it. Her Doc Martens even heavier.

They don’t come inside this time. They wait for her at the reception after signing the necessary forms, and Jem tells Trevor that she’s going to have a field trip of her own and it’s going to be ten thousand times better than the one he had, sticking her tongue out at him, before giving Rosenberg a high five with each hand, then goes to meet them.

Her mother ruffles the meticulous design of her hair, and her father gives her a beanie they bought preemptively. Their smiles are overflowing with delight at her face, and they walk with her in the middle like when she was five, and they would grab her hands and lift her off the pavement. But she’s too heavy for that now, so they have to settle on simply holding her hand.

They start at Starbucks, which Jem has only been two like, twice in her life, but once you go once you spend the rest of your days dreaming about Lemon Poppy Seed muffins and caramel macchiatos.

Her father orders an Americano, because he’s boring. Her mother is lost in the menu, and when Jem tells her there is more than what she sees on the boards, she freaks out. Jem might have done it on purpose. They both give her a stern look when she orders a Mocha Cookie Crumble Frapuccino, and Jem sighs, digs up her fingerless gloves, and holds them up in a gesture of ‘happy now?’.

Eventually her mother settles on Pumpkin Spice Latte, which Jem insists to add a luxurious amount of nutmeg to, and they all settle down to plan the rest of the day.

“So, there’s a street market,” her father says, and opens a big map on the table between them. “Right here,” he points at a location not far away. “We can go, they say they have a stand for DVDs, I might find something interesting there.”

“I thought this day was all about me,” Jem says in mock offence. Actually, a street market sounds pretty cool.

Her father opens his mouth to respond but her mother is quicker. “Don’t withhold your father’s joys in life from him, Jemima.”

“I sense there is a joke going around here.”

“You sense right, Dad.”

 “So anyway,” he says, pointedly, trying to change the subject forcefully. “What’re you thinking, Jem?”

“Sounds good.”

“So shall we?”

They take off.

 It’s a nice walk close to the beach, and Jem smells the sea stronger than usual, listens to the roar of the waves while having a meaningless conversation with her parents, dancing around her treatment.

The market is _huge_. Jem’s never been to one this size. She wants everything, except for the fishing equipment and other boring meaningless stuff. Which takes up half of the market. So no, actually, she wants half of everything.

Her father gets a Blue-Ray of _Game of Thrones,_ which he apparently watches now, and nearly sobs from the beauty of the booth they find it in.

Her mother debates between a Salmon coloured blouse and a cardigan that Jem much prefers. It’s still professional, but at least it’s black. So her mother takes the cardigan.

Jem plays around with some binoculars and fancy lighters, but her parents refuse to by either of those. She blushes as they go past a lingerie stand in fear her mother will drag her over there. She is twenty, after all, and that’s about the age mothers start doing this sort of stuff.  Probably even earlier. And Jem is just no…interested.

(Gary used to try and get her naked. She stopped him everytime. She’s not even sure she liked kissing with him, but you don’t say these things out loud, do you? You’re supposed to do that.

Charlotte’s gang were persistent in claiming she and Henry had a sexual thing going on when they were younger and the truth is that it never even crossed Jem’s mind. It’s just not important, and she doesn’t get the fuss. But enough about this, it doesn’t matter now.)

Luckily, her mother doesn’t. Jem drags them to a candy stand and she nearly says, “Let’s get it all for Kieren!” because Kieren used to love getting special candies when he was younger. Now, well, it’ll be useless. So she catches herself before she does. But they do buy him a little teddy bear that says ‘please smile, I love you’ when you press its belly. Corny, but whatever. She didn’t want to get him a dinosaur, he’s past that age.

She eats a cone of ice-cream while looking around. It’s coffee with chunks of bananas and nuts. It’s delicious.

There is a stand of guitar strings, which Jem understands nothing about even with her obsession with music, but she must do it, she must make her parents get Simon a set of strings for guitar. She advises with the seller while they busy looking at something else, and only calls for them when they settle on ones that are fancy, but not too much so. They fret, but end up paying for them, and Jem grins. She wishes she could be there when Simon gets them. Actually, she can.

“Don’t give it to him till I’m back!” she makes them promise.

“Why did we even get him that?”

“It’s a private joke.”

They’re walking around the market for a full two hours before Jem actually buys something for herself. She’s so excited to be there she doesn’t even care.

She’s  even more excited when they find a booth that makes dog tags per your request. Her parents are not completely thrilled by the idea, but so far Jem managed to get them to do what she wanted. She supposes that’s the point of days being dedicated to you.

She needs to consider this thoroughly. It is an important decision to make. Almost like a tattoo, except not really, but Jem will only get a tattoo years from now with how things are looking, so she might as well consider this as one.

“You can go do whatever, this might take a while,” she waves her parents off. They exchange a look, but go away, though not far. They can still see each other, and once in a while Jem catches them glancing over.

She always wanted one in the HVF, but since they weren’t official, and on a low budget, she didn’t get it. But this is better. This will not be tainted with the HVF.

She can get just her name. It seems to have a strong meaning nowadays. But maybe she can get more than her name. Something that will remind her of the path she’d taken. Something she can look at when she feels weak. Something –

“Take my fucking hand and never be afraid again,” she tells the seller.

“What?” is his first reaction.

“I want it on the tag.”

“Oh.”

So that’s what she gets.

After that she holds it tightly in her hand as they go to get lunch. (“What does it say?” “Something from a song.” “Do we know the song?” “No.” “Jemima.”)

They sit in a nice little place viewing the sea. The day had been benign so far, and that is…not surprising, no, she thought it would be nice, but it does exceed her expectations.

In the best of traditions, they all order things the others want as well, and put everything in the middle to share.

This is her family, and she loves them.

She still wishes Kieren could be here.

 

***

When Jem gets back to the unit she bumps into Rosenberg, who looks at her like she’s exactly who he’s been looking for, even though she’s been out all day.

“I’ve been thinking about our conversation,” he tells her with no preface.

“Oh,” she says, caught back. She was still curious, but didn’t want to push too much on the matter, so she left it be.

“Can I ask you some more questions and you’ll only answer with yes or no?”

Jem is…confused, to say the least. She has no idea where this leads to. She has no idea what’s the reasoning behind this. But it’s Rosenberg, and he’s been nothing if not harmless to her. So she decides to go along. Plus, the day’s been good. It can’t ruin it. “Yeah.”

“Not starting from now,” he clarifies.

“Still my answer.”

“Okay. Have you ever been lied to as a means to an end?”

“Yes.”

“Have you even been lied to as method acting?”

It’s only yes or no answers, so she doesn’t have the means to get into the complexity of the situation. “Yes.”

“Have you ever lied as a means to an end?”

Jem pauses, considers it. And again, she doesn’t have the means. “Yes.”

“Have you ever lied as method acting?”

“Yes.”

And this is it.

She’s still confused as their ways part, and she goes into her room. She spends the time trying to fall asleep thinking about this, but still has no idea what it leads to.

She wakes up sweaty again.

She’s gonna need to do something about it.

 

*** 

She tells Kieren she has _so much_ to tell him, but actually she doesn’t want to do it on the phone, so the conversation is fairly short.

He asks about her days with their parents.

She says it was cool as hell, and goes on to talk about the market.

He listens, remarks on some stuff.

He thanks her for the bear.

She says she misses him.

He says he misses her too.

They will see each other soon.

Jem hasn’t thought about _that._

 

***

“I think we should start talking about what I’ll do when I’ll get out.”

“The closeness of it hit you?”

“Yeah. So…”

 

***

They’re a little bit more familiar with each other by now. Like how Rosenberg will come early and rearrange the chairs, and in days where one of them don’t show up he’ll alternate between sitting at his chair and the empty one. Like how Ashan sometimes stands up when he talks, and how if he does that in an outburst it’ll make Trevor duck in his chair. Like how Michael is quiet until you address him. Like how Jem shuts down when she’s angry. Like how Rose and Mary-Anne will never agree on anything ever. Like how Tamra pops her gum. And so on and so on…

Jem kind of ignores unfamiliar faces, so they are the only people that she welcomes (well, welcomes is a strong word, it’s not always that) near her. There was an incident where one of the inpatients thought it’d be funny to use the arts and crafts materials to make himself look like a PDS sufferer, and Jem was backed into a corner, and since then her position had only been reaffirmed.

So they’re a group. You could say they’re a tight group, but they don’t actually _all_ connect until The Karaoke Night That Shall Not Be Talked About With Kieren Because Then Everyone Will Know About It Including Simon.

The first Karaoke night was apparently enough of a success to make it a fortnightly activity. Only Ashan and Rose attended the last one, and there are talks about Ashan’s performance of Mary Lambert’s _Secrets,_ and requests for a reprise. So he convinces them all to come.

Jem doesn’t know how he managed that, but Ahsan is very persuasive, and he had Rose on his side, who can be even more insistent than Jem, and surprisingly Mary-Anne didn’t tell her no, and so it happened that they all didn’t say no.

Jem’s first thought is that it couldn’t be crazier even if they were pissed down to their bones. Her second thought is: Well.

They sit in a corner all buddle together and Watch as people who aren’t Ashan do their numbers, whispering to each other. A few goes with Karaoke classics like _I Will Survive_ and _Hey Jude_. Jem must admit than even though she still thinks it’s ridiculous, her friends are pretty funny, and the people going on stage are nothing bashful, making their crowd get up and dance even when they’re singing so badly it hurts.As Ashan goes up and chooses his song, _Mr. Brightside_ ,Jem joins them as they cheer for him.

Ashan is a true performer, nothing else but it. He goes completely in character as he moves with the music, and then Trevor whisper-shouts to them: “We should start a band between all of us! Call it The In-Patients! I’ll play the harmonica.”

“Are you serious?” Jem whisper-shouts back at him. “Is it also a thing you learned during dead nights?”

“I was obsessed with Cowboy movies growing up.”

“That explains a lot.”

“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” Mary-Anne offers him.

“Don’t encourage him,” Tamra says.

“Thank you,” Jem tells her.

Trevor sits back, folds his arms on his chest. “I’ll start a duo with Mary-Anne, then.”

“How about a trio?” Michael asks.

“Excellent!”

They all laugh.

_But it's just the price I pay_   
_Destiny is calling me_   
_Open up my eager eyes_   
_Cause I'm Mr. Brightside_   


“I’m going to see what songs they have,” Rosenberg says after being uncharacteristically silent for a while. Before Jem can stop him he’s out of reach, and soon enough out of sight. This is going to end badly. For sure.

Ashan is singing on someone’s face right about now. They all cheer again.

Jem crosses her legs and leans her head on Trevor’s shoulder, who in turn leans his head on hers. He has a very comforting body heat. She’s surprised at how easily she’s willing to have physical contact with some people here, but they all have their wards and so maybe it makes it easier.

As soon as Ashan finishes and comes running flushed-red with a huge smile on his face to them, Rosenberg runs past them to the stage, calling, “Don’t stop me now!”

Yeah, it couldn’t be crazier even if they were pissed down to their bones.

 

***

Afterwards, everyone in the is still hyped. They separated once again into their own groups of friends as they trotted outside of the room, some staying behind to help the staff arrange everything, some just looking questioningly wondering if they should, and others simply walking out.

Half way back to the rooms Jem reaches out to grab at Rosenberg’s elbow, reminds herself that he doesn’t like when people surprise him like that, and instead just says, “Hey,” loud and clear enough for him to understand it’s aimed at him.

Rosenberg turns around, still a bit shocked by being on stage, his hair gathered into a messy pony tail and face sweaty. “Hey,” he says, and cleans his face with his sleeves until he’s satisfied.

Jem thinks how to phrase what she wants to say. She still doesn’t want to pressure him but she needs to know what he’s questions are all about lest she’ll go mad with pondering over it. “Can we talk?” She asks. Maybe outside of the buzz of other people she’ll be able to do it more coherently.

Rosenberg nods. “Garden?” he suggests. It’s late enough for it to be completely empty, like at that day. She agrees.

“How did I do?” he asks as they are on the path there.

“Brilliant,” Jem admits. He really was. Ashan might be a performer since birth or something, but Rosenberg was pure fun on stage, mimicking Freddie Mercury’s movements with precision, then laughing at himself.

“Really?” he shines at her. His face, even without the sweat, are glimmering, and he’s all red spots and burning freckles.

“Yes.”

She links their hands at the elbows, and they continue like that until reaching their beloved bench.

“So,” Rosenberg sits with a huff. “We gathered here to…” he signals for her to finish the sentence.

Jem sits down next to him. She takes a deep breath. “To talk about the impeccable plan of yours to keep me in the dark with vague questions.”

“In the dark about what?”

“That’s my point, dickhead.”

“Right, right.”

Slowly, Rosenberg’s radiance fades into a look of consideration, and his hand once again plays with his wristband. She’s tempted to reach out and stop him, sometimes it helps her get out of her own mind, but she doesn’t know, with him, so she lets him be until he’ll find the words.

Finally, he breathes in, then says, “I don’t think I’m normal. I don’t think I’m what I am. And I wanted to talk about this with someone, and I don’t know, you seemed…good, but I couldn’t just, you know – “

“Hey,” she cuts him off as he begins to sound like he has no air left in him. This time she does reach for the hand playing with the wristband, and wraps her palm around it.

“I’m sorry if that bothered you, or caused you any trouble.”

“It did. A bit. I was just…I don’t like things not being clear. That’s all. But it’s really…it’s really alright. Okay?”

He nods, and then his hand is turned to hold back to her palm. It feels…strangely pleasant. He clutches at her, and then: “I don’t think I’m a boy.”

She’s silent, at first. She didn’t expect a full disclosure of his actions, and certainly not that. And then she wonders if silence will make him uncomfortable. And then she wonders if whatever she has to say will make him uncomfortable. She doesn’t even know what she has to say. She wants to say, “Okay,” but that seems too simple, and on the other hand, any other thing seems too much. Eventually, she settles on, “That’s okay.”

Rosenberg is still clutching her hand. “I don’t know what I am. But it’s not a boy.” He’s looking anywhere but at her. “It’s so messy. It’s not even. It’s not either that or that. I don’t know what I am. I’m scared.”

“That’s okay,” she says again, softer.

“Is it?” he asks. His grip on her hand tightens momentarily, and then his eyes fall shut.

“Yeah. We can figure it out together. Or not. We can not figure it out together as well. Or you can do that alone.”

“I don’t want to do that alone. I can’t. I’ll go mad.”

“So together.”

He looks at her, then, and his eyes are wide and wet with tears. “Can you tell me a story? Anything. Doesn’t matter.”

Jem’s not good with stories. She’s not good with inventing them, and she’s not good with telling the real ones. But she can try. She thinks, then, maybe she should offer something about herself, to make them even. If she was in Rosenberg’s place it’ll make her feel safer. That’s what Kieren used to do in these situations.

“When I was fourteen I went to our school’s dance with a boy named Henry. He’s dead now, I shot him, actually, he was a PDS sufferer and I made a mistake, one of many. But that isn’t the point. When we were fourteen we went to that dance together, and he was nice, funny. My friend, Lisa, who is also dead, would you look at that, at least I didn’t shoot her, though I could have shot the Rabids who killed her, but one of them was my brother, so, you know. Anyway, Lisa used to taunt me about wanting to bone Henry for years. But we were only fourteen back then, so it was still, like, acceptable that we wouldn’t do that? And I think I was also kind of in love with her, so it had a whole different layer of uncomfortable. Anyway, then it passed, but then I was nineteen, and some girls, I thought they wanted to be my friends, but apparently one of them just wanted revenge because I killed her father after she came back from the dead. I’m pretty repetitive, aren’t I? You’re probably bored.”

Rosenberg huffs a small laugh, and Jem had looked away somewhere in the middle of her story, but she can feel his eyes still on her. So she goes on. “So these girls, they started asking about Henry again, because he came up to try and talk to me. And I didn’t know what to do about that. I’m nineteen now, I’m not supposed to be embarrassed by the suggestion of sex. But I was. I didn’t want to think about that. Not with Henry. Not with anybody. And my ex-boyfriend, who’s a real dick, and we shouldn’t talk about him, but I’m going to talk about this part. He wanted to do that, of course, but luckily he’s always too busy hating my brother to actually give a damn about anything else, so I got out of that just fine. I tried to fake it, you know, just be normal. But I’m not. I don’t know what I am either.”

Jem looks up, finally, trying to breathe normally again after the rush of words and the rush of feelings. Rosenberg’s smile is gentle and…thankful, she thinks. It seems thankful. She feels thankful, out of nowhere. She wants to hug him. So she does. And he’s stiff, at first, doesn’t respond, so she worries it might have been a mistake, but when he hugs her back, it surely wasn’t.

“Thank you,” he whispers. And then: “We can figure it out together.”

Jem doesn’t know what she’s feeling right now, but it must be strong.

 

***

The next month goes by in a rush.

She spends nearly every free moment with Rosenberg , though it’s hard because their timetables are not always identical. He has a psychiatrist much more often and different times of therapy, but at least they’re in group together, and the rest of the time they choose the same activities. They talk…not about the heavy shit, not right now. They just want to hang out, for a bit. Laugh. She calls him Shmul when he teases her about her haircut, and then he runs his hand over her slightly grown undercut, and they shut up.

Trevor says they’re joined by the hip now, and it’s cute. She tells him he’s jealous just to tease. So he rustles her to the ground.

She does go to slam poetry with Mary-Anne and Michael. She doesn’t know why she didn’t before. It’s like being hit repeatedly with your favourite line of a song, if it’s good. And the three of them apparently have a lot in common regarding music.

She devises a plan with Eisley as to what to do when she’s back home. She’s going to still come to group, and they thought about still coming twice a week to Eisley, but that seems like too much of an effort that she wouldn’t manage. But she is going to call him if she has an episode too harsh. And one month into being home they’re going to see how she feels about that, and if she should go back.

She tells Kieren that, yes, she is going to come back when they said, yes, for sure, why is it so important, no, I know you miss me, it’s not that, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me –

NO WAY!

(They are going to a Gerard Way concert. Jem doesn’t care much about the details at the moment, because as she said, they are going to a Gerard Way concert. Kieren Walker might be the best brother in the world, but she needs to check it further to confirm.)

People start to understand that she is going to go away soon. Jem starts to understand that she is going to go away soon. She promises she’s not going to disappear, though.She’s never going to disappear again. Enough with that shit.

 

***

And now her luggage is ready, the forms signed, goodbyes said, freaking out over going back mostly had. She waits for her parents to arrive, and she thinking she’s alone, but suddenly two people are hugging her.

 “Zisale.” That’s Rosenberg.

“That’s kind of like darling.” And that’s Trevor.

She might start crying on the spot, but then her parents’ car nears, and she needs to be cool and collected so that everybody knows: She’s ready to go home.

(But what are a couple of tears in the face of what she went through? Fuck that, she is crying.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lyrics used in this part are from:  
>  _When I Grow Up_ by _Garbage_  
>  _Mr. Brightside_ by _The Killers_


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so. this is it. the last part. i'm...yeah. okay. i'm emotional. thank you to everyone who read this, and left a word, or a kudo. just...thank you a lot. here we go.

**EPILOGUE**

 

Three months into being home and Jem’s ears are still ringing from the Gerard Way concert that happened the night she got back from the psych ward. She’s still seeing lights, sometimes, when she goes to sleep at night. The lights from the stage.  She plays _Brother_ and dances alone in her room.It’s a never-ending high; every time you think it’s going to fade, it comes back with another memory. And you’d think the after-show depression will eventually come, but it doesn’t, it’s like a continuous shock that prevents you from feeling anything remotely close to sad.

Kieren spends much more time away from home with Simon, which is a thing she could see coming since the night they all went together to the show. And Simon, well, he’s much more tolerable, to say the least. Of course there were the few first days of Jem being home and Kieren looking at her like the little brother he technically is, waiting for all the stories she’d like to tell him, wanting to make her as welcomed as possible. But as things went back to normal, so did Simon’s and Kieren’s relationship. Well, as normal as these two can be, with so many things happening to them and around them and their world that keeps revolving backwards.

Two months before now Eisley asked Jem if she feels like she wants to go back to the hospital. Jem said no without hesitation. They are now meeting once a week, and then twice the next week. It’s good, it’s enough to keep her grounded, for now.

Group is still happening once a week. The first time she came from home it was a surrealistic experience. Everybody acted as if she hadn’t been there for ages, just to exaggerate, and that put a coy smile on her face, remembering she has people other than her family now. And then later, she didn’t go back to her room at the hospital, but to the train station to get back home, and that was…she doesn’t even have the words to describe the flip flops her stomach did.

She talked. She talked a lot. They wanted to hear from her about being back home, and she said, well, her town is still _so_ boring, you have no idea, I’m looking for things to do and I’m like, stuck with searching for a job. _Really_ boring.

Which is a lie, and a joke. Something always settles down in Roarton before rising (no pun intended), and any peace should be taken with a grain of salt. She supposes, not everybody amongst the living gets to experience this peace. Just those who aren’t also dead.

She said that to the group as well.

Today is work day. Jem no longer shreds papers; she’s now selling cheap food to rude people, as all her generation must be doing. She manages no more than a rage fit once a week, and that’s enough for her manager, that’s enough for anyone in Roarton to be honest. She dons her stupid cap and goes behind the counter.

“Hello, how may I help you?” is a sentence said too often.

***

“Look – Fine – It’s fine!” Jem laughs. It’s visiting day, and she came to visit Rosenberg. They are sitting in the garden, and Rosenberg’s holding her injured hand (she injured it at work, closing the cash register’s drawer on her fingers like a dumb clumsy person) and examining it like he’s a doctor.

“Doesn’t look fine to me, miss,” Rosenberg says with the worst mimic of a Doctor voice she’s ever had.

“Anyway,” she snatches her hand back. “How’ve you been? What’ve you been up to here?”

“Not much,” he says, shrugging. He’s much more enthusiastic to talk about Jem’s deeds in the big wide world than talk about how it is in here without her. But then his eyes light up and he adds: “Oh! We had pizza night.”

“Pizza night?” she nearly shouts with surprise mixed with jealousy. “That’s not fair. Why didn’t we have any when _I_ was here.” She sits back on the bench, crossing her arms and pouting.

Rosenberg laughs. “I’m pretty sure you can eat all the pizza you want now.”

“ _Nearly_ all the pizza I want,” she corrects him. He leans his hand on her shoulder, and they sit in their brand of comfortable silence for a while.

“Hey,” Jem says eventually. “I did some research.” She’s been waiting a week and a half to tell him that, and she doesn’t want to sound too excited about it.

“On?” Rosenberg asks.

“Genders. I think I printed you a whole website.” She opens her bag, takes out a bundle of pages and hands them to him. “Did you know there’s a thing called ‘the gender binary’ and it’s a social construct?”

“Did you know nearly everything we come in contact with is a social construct?” Rosenberg replies, sounding like there is a discussion he wants to have about that, but he takes the pages anyway. “Thanks,” he says quietly after flicking through them.

“No problem.”

She watches him read a few of them, and then: “Demi boy,” he reads out loud.

***

When Kieren and Simon are around, Jem makes sure to spend time with them. She doesn’t know exactly what tells her that she should before they’re gone – maybe it’s because ever since Kieren came back, she felt like she should before he’s gone. Maybe it’s because Kieren tends to run even when he has no reason to, and now, she thinks, he has plenty of them, and maybe it’s because Simon will follow like he did to the show, and that’s…that’s another reason to go.

And it’s easier now than it was before, to talk to Simon like he is part of the universe and not like an isolated point in space and time that happened to connect with Kieren, to feel like she did when Kieren and Rick took her around the town, or around the woods, or –

But Simon is different in that he mostly connects with Jem through Kieren, and not through himself. And, she thinks, it’s fine. Even if everything they’ll ever have to talk about is Kieren, it’ll be fine, because they both love Kieren enough as to do that.

She gave Simon the guitar strings she bought him in an embarrassing ceremony, and she made him bring the guitar over, with the help of Kieren, who was pressing on the tummy of his teddy bear and smiling the most idiotic smile while convincing him that, hey, Jem embarrassed me, now it’s your turn.

Simon glared at the both of them, but like with the Gerard Way concert, eventually did what they wanted (what Kieren wanted).

“Did he ever play for you?” Jem asks Kieren excitedly as Simon unwraps the guitar strings. They fit his guitar, he says, though he prefers them thicke – “Shut up and play us a song.”

Simon rolls his eyes. “I need to change the strings first for someone.” He says with a sly smile. Now Jem claps.

“Nope, never,” is Kieren’s belated answer. He’s staring at Simon’s fingers, Jem notices, he probably thinks she doesn’t, so she elbows him. He snaps into attention.

“So play us a nice song, for Kieren,” she says.

“I’m not going to serenade my boyfriend in front of his sister.”

“Who said anything about serenades? I said a _nice_ song.”

Kieren is now smiling proudly to himself, this dummy.

Simon ends up playing them Bruce Springsteen’s _Mansion on the Hill_. His voice is low and his playing clumsy, like being dead had taken something from it, but it’s still beautiful, and you can barely notice the absence of the Harmonica with how well he fills it.

They are both mesmerized, and Simon refuses to look at them until it’s done.

 

***

“I think I understand now.”

“What?”

“What being a child means.”

“And what is it?”

“Acting like you aren’t one.”

“And how did you come to this conclusion?”

“Spent some time with my family.”

 

***

The first time she decides to take a stroll through Roarton, Jem is shaking because it’s too cold and she haven’t thought of that, and because something inside of her is still frightened of this place and she can’t shut it up.

But she goes. She goes first to the supermarket, and walks along the aisles undisturbed with her hand sliding on the shelves. She breathes in deep, and shuts her eyes, and opens them, and goes to that one specific point that haunts her memories and –

There’s nothing. There’s nothing there. There are people going by with their trolleys, stuffing them with their future purchases, and various shop workers with their vests, some paler, some tanner, but other than that, there’s nothing.

She keeps staring at it, and the voice in her head tells her to run, but she ignores it, she walks straight through there, and she keeps going, and going, until she’s out of the supermarket, and then she’s running, throwing her hands to her sides and laughing out loud.

She feels so alive.

***

It’s Rosenberg who says, in the middle of a conversation about pronounces, that, “I know you’re busy caring about me and all, but I mean, what about you?”

“What about me?” Jem asks back.

They’re munching on a cake Rosenberg stole from lunch, and Rosenberg had been explaining feverishly, with hands waving and all, about what being a demi boy means to him, until the change of subject came in the middle of a bite he probably took on purpose.

“Well, you know, I’m figuring myself out, and we’d said we’d do it together, so…what about you?”It’s not an accusation, nor a concern. It’s a genuine question of wondering. Rosenberg takes another bite of the cake, and looks at her, waiting.

“I dunno,” Jem shrugs, and takes the cake out of his hands. He had enough, he should leave some for her. He doesn’t fight with her about it, but he gives her a look. She gives him one back.“I don’t really think about it until it’s a bother, and it’s not right now, so I don’t know.” She swallows the whole of the cake in one bite. That gets her another look. She licks her fingers in a manner of showing off. “So like, to summarize, you’re cool with ‘he’ and stuff?”

“I think, yeah. Just as long as people are…aware. That I’m not really a ‘he’, that is.” He gives her a napkin out of nowhere, and then asks: “So it’s not a bother?”

“What, you?”

“No.” He doesn’t need to clarify more than that.

“Not…at the moment? I’m not really thinking about that.”

“And if I – “ He stops, takes a deep breath. Jem is lost on what he could be wanting to say. “If I wanted to kiss you, would it be a bother?” he eventually asks.

Jem stares at him. And then: “What, you?” she asks weakly.

“No. The…thing. About sex. Would it bother you, if I wanted to kiss you?”

“Are you saying you want to kiss me?”

“Only if you want me to.”

“Because – that wouldn’t be a bother.”

 

***

Rosenberg kisses like everything is moving too fast for him, and Jem needs to slow him down for it to work, and she doesn’t really know how to do that either. Gary was the one controlling all their kisses, but Rosenberg…he – he also kisses like he’s lost, and Jem is helping him find the way.

It’s…nice.

He also insists on Jem figuring herself out, and no, no, it’s not because I want to have sex with you, I swear, I just, I don’t want you getting uncomfortable, for any reason.

So when Jem gets back home, and her lips are still tingling even though it’s been hours since they kissed, she tells nothing to no one, and just spends the night in front of the computer, finding resources, and eventually –

_Asexuality_.

She has a name.

***

Rosenberg isn’t a secret, just a thing that is privately hers, and she wouldn’t like to bring other people into the conversation, thank you very much.

If she’ll tell her family, they’ll say “Oh, it’s a boy, isn’t it?” and that would be: a. wrong, and b. nothing she would like their family dinners to revolve around.

So she tells Eisley: “I met someone.” And he gets the implication, responds with an, “Oh?” and a raised eyebrow that is his sign of interest. She tells him: “Yes, but I don’t want the meeting to be about that.”

So they decide to not share that with the group, but Trevor, of course, is the first one to hear that they kissed. They tell him together, and he hugs them both, and he says: “You’re going to have beautiful kinderlach,” so they both slap him playfully _because shut up Trevor._

It’s not a big deal if they won’t make a big deal out of it, so. They don’t.

***

“Asexuality,” She tells Rosenberg over the phone. He hums.

“And are you…are you okay with – “

“I think we’ve made that clear,” she laughs.

“Alright.”

“I think just…trial and mistake will be good? When we’ll have more time.”

He hums again.

 

***

It’s actually Kieren who puts the idea of political activism into her brain.

“I’m kind of…you know, I’ve gotten all the way to here, but I still have no idea what to do with myself. I can’t spend the rest of my life working a crappy job, that can’t be my meaning,” she tells him, as they’re sitting once again with their backs against the shed.

Kieren nods, understanding, and this time he’s the one plucking weeds out. He asks: “What is meaningful to you?”

And Jem needs to think about this for a couple of minutes, because she never did think, she always just did. While she thinks, Kieren throws out ideas.

“You’re gonna go back to school soon, so, I guess that’s something?”

“But it’s not _the_ something,” she says, frustrated, because her mind draws blank.

“What about activism, then?” Kieren says as casually as a person who talks about nothing casual can.

She crosses her eyebrows. “What, like your boyfriend’s ex friends?”

“They’re not his – no, Jem, nothing like that, you cannot _possibly_ – “

“Hey, panic boy, I swear I’m done with killing people.”

Kieren nods fiercely, once.

They sit quietly, for a moment, and then Jem starts again:

“You know, when I joined the HVF, it was…well, it was because I was angry and shooting – well, that helped. But it was because I was helping, as well, you know?”

Kieren does. As ironic as it is, Kieren is the only person who does, the only person she can bring this up to.

“Well, it’s not the people with the guns that need help now, innit?” he says, a touch of bitterness to his voice. You can only separate yourself from something up to a certain degree, and from there, it’s simply impossible.

Jem considers this. And then her mind is positively swarming. 

***

Her parents are not as obsessively caring for her as they were for the first couple of weeks after she got back home. It was initially the thing that got her off her ass to find a new job, that fussing over her, that “Do you need anything sweetie?” that she heard, like, twenty times a day probably.

Now they are resigned to their normal worrisome behavior, with her Dad suggesting movies and garden work, and her Mum trying to get her to come to community activities with her. Jem takes up on movies sometimes, but doesn’t want to go hang out with a community she’d come to despise, so they end up watching adaptations of books she’d read, the three of them, and sometimes Kieren as well, and occasionally Simon.

By now, they are all prepared to the long intervals of Jem complaining about how the movie is changed and ruined, and fine, fine, you can press play if you really want to watch this lame excuse of a story.

“Next time we can just watch something that didn’t come out of a book, you know?”

But they very rarely do.

                                                                                                         ***

“Hey,” she tells Rosenberg on a phone call, “You know how you don’t like talking about your past?”

“Yes?”

“I kind of need a favour.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then a sigh, and then: “Alright, zisale, what do you need?”

Jem takes a deep breath. “Can you link me with some groups in my area? I mean, activists. Not the crazy kind is preferable, but you know, I’ll deal with people like you as well.”

Rosenberg laughs out, in something that sounds like relief. “Yeah, you better,” he says, and then: “Sure. Why?”

“I…I want to do something with myself, and I think helping people will be a good place to start.”

“Jemima Walker.”

“What?”

“Just no guns, yeah?”

“Why is everybody so fixated on me using guns?”

“Oh my god, Jem.” She can hear him face palm.

“Yeah, no guns,” she reassures him. Just because he’s nice and deserves it. “So, you’ll do it?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’ll do it.”

“Thank you, zisale.”

“We need to work on your Yiddish.”

“Oh, shut up.” She fiddles with the cord of the phone for a moment, while Rosenberg’s belly-laugh dies out, and then: “And, um, you know, if you do want to talk about…anything, ever, I’m kind of…I’ll want to hear it, yeah?”

“I know.”

“Preferably before you meet my parents because I think they are still traumatized by my brother’s boyfriend so maybe I can prepare them.”

“Jemima Walker!”

“That’s the spirit.”

***

“I’m going back to school.” It suddenly hits her at the middle of a meeting with Eisley. It’s happening in a week, and she hasn’t been paying much thought to it, rather focusing on her new found occupation and boring work, while her mother had been shopping for school equipment Jem doesn’t really need because she has plenty left. But her mother says it’s a new start so she deserves new things, which…Jem doesn’t get, but whatever, she can’t say no.

“Are you happy about it?”

She is, sort of. She doesn’t want to think about the people there, but she’s happy she’s getting back on track. She tells Eisley that.

“Well, you know, it’s natural, to be afraid of getting back somewhere.”

“Yeah. And I really need it to work, you know?”

“Well, third time’s a charm, innit?” Eisley smiles his crooked smile at her.

“It really should be. I don’t think I can do a fourth.”

“I think you can do whatever it takes, Jem.”

Jem smiles back at him, small and hidden. “I should give myself this credit at least, shouldn’t I?” 

“You really should.”

 

Yeah, she thinks, clutching her god-tag necklace. And she does.

 

Because if Jem Walker wouldn’t, then who will?

**Author's Note:**

> definitions are taken from [here](http://dictionary.reference.com/).
> 
> lyrics used in this chapter are from the songs:  
>  _Our Lady of Sorrows_ by My Chemical Romance  
>  _Master of Puppets_ by Metallica  
>  _Got the Time_ by Anthrax


End file.
